A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words
by vivaciousWordsmith
Summary: A poor artist paints a beautiful picture for his lord...of Kagome! And why does it seem so...powerful? And now this perfectly ordinary human is being pursued by youkai from all over Nippon? There's more to this story than meets the eye...
1. The Painter's Muses

Gaka was in trouble. Five days ago, the lord of the local province's castle had commissioned him to paint a portrait of a goddess for his reception area, and so far, all Gaka had come up with were a few sketchy charcoal portraits on ragged parchments. The lord was becoming impatient, and Gaka knew that he would have to pick up the pace if he didn't want to be kicked out without any gold-or just executed for wasting the lord's time.

The trouble was this: Gaka simply hadn't found any inspiration. He'd traveled around the province and seen many beautiful ladies, but none of them called to his artist's soul. Gaka knew that when the right woman was found, he would just _know. _Like he had known when his life's dream was painting. It wasn't like a revelation or an epiphany; it was like Gaka had always known, but it had taken him a long time to realize it. However, none of the beauties he'd seen thus far had called out to him, and Gaka knew that he was running out of time. He _needed _this job; the lord was willing to pay much gold, enough to feed and clothe Gaka for many months, and the reputation he would get from the job was beyond priceless.

If only he could find his goddess...

Gaka sat on a bridge in a small village, sometimes throwing stones into the water as he moped. If he couldn't find a suitable woman in time, he would probably have to make do with whatever he had found. That seriously irked Gaka. _'What is the point of an important commission if I cannot pour my heart and soul into it?' _he griped to himself.

It was then, sitting on the bridge as he threw stones into the water, that he saw her. The girl was standing with a group of three other people and one child. He took no notice of them, however. They were positively mundane compared to the living, breathing phenomenon he now beheld. Her eyes were large and brown, filled with youthful innocence, but also a strange timelessness, as if she were older than her young visage suggested. Her lips were full and round, not pouting, but more...accepting. Her skin was the color of fragile porcelain and looked just as delicate. The long hair that cascaded in brilliantly luscious waves down her back were black, the sunlight somehow splitting the darkness into every color of the rainbow. The body underneath her rather odd clothes was perfect: her breasts were neither too small nor too big, her hips well proportioned to her waist. The long legs exposed by the unusually short skirt were well-rounded and looked deceptively fragile.

A strange, tingling warmth spread throughout Gaka's body.

His artist's soul was at last appeased.

He had found his Amaterasu.

Gaka quickly reached into his pack and drew out charcoal and a battered scroll. Moving fast so as not to let his newest inspiration get away from him, Gaka sketched the girl in the pose he had decided to use for his Amaterasu when he found her. _'There is no mistake!' _he thought gleefully. _'She is my Amaterasu.'_

The joyful artist rushed to the castle the next day, eager to start painting the scroll of Amaterasu. However, when he was only five miles from the castle, Gaka drew to a halt. _'What in the name of all the Kami am I going to use for paints?' _he wondered. Of course he couldn't do Amaterasu with charcoal, and the regular ink paints seemed too...normal for him. Gaka wanted his Amaterasu to radiate power and beauty, to strike adoration and respect into the hearts of others, to make them feel as if she could walk off the page and into their very lives. But where on Earth could he find the materials to help him do so?

Angrily, Gaka kicked a stray pebble on the ground. It clattered away into the ditch at the side of the road, glinting with a strange light as it splashed into the muddy ditch-water. _'Wait a second,' _Gaka thought, his eyes narrowing. The pebble he had kicked had nowhere near the brilliance of that sparkle. Gaka, being an artist and thus curious about everything in the world, decided to investigate. The artist shed his pack and clambered carefully into the ditch. There it was again! An unmistakable pink glow, almost like some sort of gemstone...

Gaka's arm shot out, like it was an iron nail drawn to a magnet. His fingers got mostly mud, but he thought he could feel a stone somewhere in the lot. Gaka drew the glop up to his face and began to sift carefully through it.

The artist stared, his jaw slightly agape. A glittering pink sliver of a stone rested in the muddy palm of his hand. It looked remarkably ordinary, but Gaka's intuition told him that if he had laid this particular gem in the midst of other precious stones, the people would be tripping over themselves to get _this_ stone. There was just something about it...something that exuded power...

_'Power...' _Hadn't Gaka been searching for something out of the ordinary to give his Amaterasu the sense of godliness she needed? Hadn't he cursed to himself, thinking such a thing was impossible? _'Dear Kami above, I thank you for this precious gift!' _he thought gleefully, lifting his hand to the sky in gratitude. _'I promise you that my painting will be the best work ever done!'_

Gaka moved off, eager to begin the work on his Amaterasu.


	2. Rats, Dogs and a Beautiful Kami

It was a nice day in Nippon. The sun was shining in an azure sky, the trees rustled in the occasional breeze, and the birds were chirruping as they hopped from branch to branch.

"Ah," Miroku sighed as he tilted his head back towards the heavens above. "This weather is an outstanding improvement from all the rain we've been having."

"I'll say!" Shippou cried. "It beats having to walk outside in the wet and cold."

"Feh!" InuYasha, who was a considerable distance ahead of the group, looked back at them, his golden eyes scornful. "You weak humans can't even handle a little rain!"

"Look who's talking!" Kagome stopped walking and glared at the offending hanyou. "I seem to remember a certain _someone _moping about and whining about 'all this rain messing with my nose!'" InuYasha went scarlet, but said nothing.

"I wish it coulda messed with _mine,_" Shippou complained, his tiny nose wrinkling. "Wet dog smells awful."

In the blink of an eye, InuYasha was standing right next to Shippou, and promptly began bashing him on the head. "Wah! Kagome, helpme!" the kitsune wailed as he shielded his bright orange locks with his tiny hands.

"Who smells terrible, then?" InuYasha growled, his fist still dealing punishment to the wailing kit.

"Oh, knock it off, you-" Kagome cut off abruptly, her back straightening as her eyes widened. Her head jerked to the west, like a terrier who had just scented a rat.

"What is it, Kagome-sama?" Miroku asked worriedly.

"Is it a shard?" Sango asked, charging over from the back of the group, Kirara perched precariously on her shoulder. InuYasha left off pounding Shippou to join his gaggle of friends.

"I...I think so," Kagome whispered. "Well, one of them is _definitely _a shard...but the other one..." Kagome trailed off, lost in thought as her eyes took in the western horizon.

"Is...is it..." Sango tailed off, eying Kagome hopefully. Kagome, however, shook her head.

"No, Sango-chan, it isn't Kohaku-kun. His shard has a different aura. I'm sorry," she said softly as Sango lowered her head.

"Never mind that shit! Where's the shard at?" InuYasha growled, one hand fingering Tetsusaiga. Kagome's eyes scanned the west, focusing...

"Right over there!" she cried, one hand pointing towards the northwest. Without further ado, InuYasha took off, a greyhound chasing the track rabbit.

"Wait, InuYasha!" Miroku cried, even though all they could see of their hanyou friend was the occasional flash from his silver mane. "Wait for us!" InuYasha did not wait, and soon he was gone.

"Well, let's try to catch up with him, Kirara," Sango said. Kirara mewed and leaped off of Sango's shoulder. She transformed in midair, and Kagome and Sango boarded her. Miroku sighed.

"What are you sighing for?" Sango asked suspiciously.

"If InuYasha hadn't run off, I would be the one sitting behind you, Sango," Miroku said wistfully.

"And what exactly-" Sango stopped speaking as the full intent behind Miroku's words sank in. "HENTAI!" she cried, throwing one of her shoulder-plates at him.

Kagome rolled her eyes. "C'mon guys," she pleaded. "Can't we save this for later?" Kirara growled her assent.

* * *

In a not-too-faraway field, three hideous rat youkai were accosting a shivering human. **"Stop making us repeat ourselves," **the biggest and most hideous of the rats (obviously the Alpha rat) snarled, his black tongue flashing out from between his yellow teeth. **"Just hand over the shikon-no-kakera you carry and we **_**might **_**let you go free."**

The man trembled, his spiky black locks (unusual for a human) quivering like a hedgehog's spines as he tightened his hold on his pack. "And I have told you," he managed to whimper, "that I do not carry such an item. I am only a poor artist, and have little riches on me."

**"What do we want with riches?" **the second largest rat sneered, his black lips curling back to reveal his wicked fangs. **"What good would riches do us? Naw, we want the shikon-no-kakera you carry. Then we'll be feared and respected by all other youkai!"**

The human still trembled, but he tried to make his voice strong and assertive as he said, "I have told you, I do not have anything like that which you desire. Now, please go away and leave me alone."

**"Aw, lissen to the liddle cockbite!" **The third and smallest of the rats guffawed as he leaned on his spear to support his mirth-ridden body. **"He actually thinks he can get away from us!" **The rat stood up, his glowing red eyes glinting with malice as he started to sharpen his spear with a river rock. **"You ain't goin' nowhere, you liddle human slime," **he sniggered.

**"I think the time for chivalry has passed," **the second rat stated as he ran his skinny tongue lovingly over his rusty katana. **"I say we cut 'im open, tear out 'is guts and chew on 'em until he tells us where 'e's hidden 'is shard!"**

The third rat bellowed his agreement as he waved his spear about. **"Yeah, all this talking is gettin'-ARGH!" **The rat went down with a sudden scream as his head parted company with his shoulders. Black blood gushed out of the rat's neck-stump, soaking the ground beneath it as his body fell to the ground, his bald tail writhing as his trembling hands dropped the spear to the ground with a clatter. **"Watch out, mates," **he groaned as his red eyes fogged over in death, **"That 'un's...stronger...than...'e..." **The rat died with a small sigh, his body disintegrating into ash, and the ash into nothingness.

"Dammit," InuYasha cursed as he shook his bloodied hand. "I hate rat youkai. They always smell like the worst kinda _shit._" InuYasha went over to the other two rat youkai and stood in front of the shivering human artist. "You wanna follow suit?" he asked, brandishing his bloody hand.

**"You...you cock-sucking half-breed son of a bitch!" **Alpha rat cried, brandishing his giant mace. **"How **_**dare **_**you kill one of us!" **With a great snarl, the muscled rat charged, his mace clutched in both claws as he dashed towards the enemy hanyou.

**"Yeah, show that murderin' scum what for, boss!" **the second rat called, holding back just in case Alpha rat lost to the newcomer.

"Heh." InuYasha smirked as he cracked his claws, readying himself for the kill. "Too easy." Just as InuYasha was about to just slice his head off, the rat suddenly whirled about, using his long bald tail to knock InuYasha off balance. InuYasha staggered away, his face and left shoulder stinging from the unexpectedly brutal blow. "Dammit!" he cursed as one hand went to Tetsusaiga.

Alpha rat was now ignoring InuYasha as he pursued the artist, swinging his mace over his head as he went in for the kill. The artist was petrified with fright, watching with wide eyes as the rat grinned at him. **"Don't worry, yew little prick," **he growled in an almost loving way. **"Yew won' feel anything after I smash ya to pieces!"**

InuYasha drew Tetsusaiga, the rusted katana transforming into a sword of terrible power. The second rat looked at Tetsusaiga, then at his own rusty old katana. **"Aw, fergit this!" **he cried, and, flinging his katana down on the ground, the rat ran for it, his tail whipping out behind him as he legged it.

Alpha rat heard his subordinate's shout and turned around to watch him flee into the surrounding forest. **"Yew cowardly low-life deserter!" **he shouted, **"Come back 'ere!"**

However, in trying to pursue his lost subordinate, Alpha rat did the one thing he should never have done: turn his back to his opponent. Next second, Tetsusaiga emerged from the rat's chest, blood spurting about the magnificent blade as InuYasha stabbed the rat from behind. Slowly, Alpha rat looked down at the long white blade of Tetsusaiga, blood dripping from in between his fangs. His red eyes blinked in disbelief. **"Wha...wha..." **he gasped as InuYasha yanked the Tetsusaiga from his chest. **"But...but this...wasn't...supposed...to..." **The rat tailed off as he keeled over and died, his face fixed into an ugly grimace shortly before his body disintegrated like his comrade's before him.

"That's it for him," InuYasha muttered to himself as he sheathed Tetsusaiga. His golden eyes scanned the treeline for any sign of the last rat, but he was long since gone. InuYasha cursed, then turned back towards the human artist on the ground. "You okay?" he asked as he started to walk over to the artist.

"I...I think so," he gasped as he pushed himself up. "What...what did they want?"

InuYasha's eyes narrowed as he sniffed the air. The human's scent was clogged with fear, but he wasn't lying. "You mean you really don't know?" InuYasha asked incredulously.

The human shrugged. "I am only a simple artist. How should I know what youkai like? Oh, that reminds me!" The artist dashed forward and seized one of InuYasha's hands in both of his own. "Thank you so much for your kind actions! If it had not been for you, I would surely be only a distant memory by now!"

"Uh...don't mention it." InuYasha snatched his hand away from the artist, secretly wishing that the artist _was _a distant memory now.

"My name is Gaka, and if you should ever require-"

"NO," InuYasha growled, taking a step back from the now bowing and scraping Gaka. "I do not, nor will I _ever _want or need your services!"

"InuYasha!"

The call came from the sky as Kirara descended from above, dropping off Kagome and Sango. Shortly afterward, Miroku and Shippou emerged from the forest, Miroku panting slightly from his run.

"Are you all right?" Kagome asked as he hopped off of Kirara to inspect InuYasha for damage.

"Nuthin' that won't heal on its own," InuYasha replied. "Y'might wanna check this guy, though." He jerked his thumb over at Gaka. "The rats were trying to kill _him, _rather 'n me."

Kagome nodded and turned towards Gaka. "Are you all right, mister?"

Gaka, however, was busy staring at Kagome like he had just noticed her for the first time. His jaw had dropped and his black eyes were nearly bulging out of his skull. In that moment, Gaka looked rather like a startled black hedgehog. "Uh...are you all right?" Kagome repeated, slightly unnerved by the man's stare.

"Dear Kami above," Gaka whispered as he continued to stare at Kagome. "I never dreamed that this moment would ever exist outside of my wildest dreams..."

Kagome's smile slipped a notch as the strange man started walking towards her. _'Ooookay...getting a little creepy now...'_

"You are my Amaterasu!" he declared. "The very inspiration for my greatest work of all time!" Gaka lifted his hand and brushed it along her cheek. Strangely enough, his hands were oddly dainty and delicate, rather than rough like she had expected them to be.

"Uh, my name's Kagome," she squeaked as Gaka continued to stroke her cheek.

"OI! Hands off!" InuYasha snarled as he swiped irritably at Gaka's hand. Gaka drew back, his intelligent black eyes darting from InuYasha to Kagome and back again.

"Please, uh..." Miroku looked expectantly at the artist.

"Gaka," he said, almost in a daze.

"Gaka-san," Miroku continued, "Do you have any idea where we might find a shikon-no-kakera in this area?"

Gaka's brow furrowed as he frowned at the houshi. "I am very sorry, houshi, but like I told those rat youkai, I do not have any idea what a shikon-no-kakera is, and if I did, I would be the last person to be carrying one."

Everyone in the group stared at him. "You mean you don't know?" Kagome asked, disbelief etched in the undercurrents of her voice. Gaka shook his head, but then smiled in a knowing fashion.

"It figures that you would know, O Lady of the Divine Light, whose beauty rivals that of the Kami above!" he said proudly. Kagome went bright scarlet and looked away, totally embarrassed. InuYasha growled at Gaka, but if the artist had heard him, he didn't acknowledge him. Gaka shifted the pack so it rested more comfortably against his shoulders and started walking away. Then he looked back over his shoulder, as if expecting them to follow him.

"Well?" Sango asked as the group huddled close together to talk. "Should we follow him?"

"Well, he has a shikon-no-kakera in his pack, although I don't think he knows what it is," Kagome whispered back.

"So we just grab the pack and run," InuYasha stated simply. "That'll save us from having to deal with baka Gaka."

"Inu_Yasha_!" Kagome scolded.

"What?"

"That is _so _mean! You don't just take stuff and run away! We'll look like thieves, and I don't think the poor guy would take it very well!"

"I agree with you, InuYasha," Miroku said, startling everyone in the group; including InuYasha. "Remember what happened the last time an artist got a shikon-no-kakera," he elaborated. "InuYasha, Kagome-sama, Shippou, surely you remember Kotatsu?"

InuYasha growled, Shippou whimpered and Kagome shuddered. Oh yes, they remembered Kotatsu. The mad artist had found a shard in a battlefield, and had taken it home along with some liver fragments and coagulated blood. There he had discovered that painting an oni with a mixture of the shard, blood, liver and ink produced a real live oni that lived only to serve him. When the group had discovered him, Kotatsu had been using his oni servants to invade a castle and steal a princess so that he could paint a princess for himself. In the end, InuYasha and Miroku had managed to kill the youkai and liberate the shard, but Kotatsu's life was lost in the process.

Kagome looked over at Gaka, who was watching the group, his black eyes oddly intent. "I don't think he means us any harm," Kagome said as she turned back to the rest of the group. "And besides, if he was able to use that shard as a weapon, why didn't he use it on those rat youkai?"

Miroku nodded a little reluctantly. "You do have a point there, Kagome-sama."

"And anyway, if I'm judging the direction right," Kagome said, looking over at Gaka and squinting slightly, "he's taking us in the direction of the second aura...the one that's like a shard, but different. If he knows what it is and where it is, he'll be more likely to tell us if we're nice to him." At this, Kagome glared at both Miroku and InuYasha. Both men shifted uncomfortably.

"You coulda mentioned that's where he was heading," InuYasha grumbled, averting his eyes from Kagome's annoyed face.

"Well, I agree with Kagome-chan," Sango said, rising up from the tree she had been leaning on. "Maybe if we get close enough to this Gaka, he'll give us the shard of his own volition, and we won't have to steal it from him." Kagome nodded at her friend, and the women started moving towards Gaka, who smiled brightly as they approached, his unusually white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

InuYasha, Miroku and Shippou hung back, the two men unwilling to accept the strange artist into their group, even if it was only temporary. Shippou was doing his best to try and convince them that Kagome and Sango wasn't just humoring Gaka because he was rather good looking (despite the fact that he was a few shards short of a jewel) but InuYasha and Miroku weren't buying it. Reluctantly they followed the women over to the artist's side.

"Well then," Gaka cried, clapping his hands together as he beamed at the small group. "If you follow me, then I shall show you my Amaterasu!"


	3. Journey Through the Forest

It soon became painfully clear that Gaka was nothing more or less than a youkai magnet. They hadn't even taken five steps into the forest when a slavering worm youkai charged towards him, demanding that he give the shard over to it. Sango's Hiraikotsu quickly took care of it. Ten minutes later, the group had to fend off the rest of the worm youkai's colony; InuYasha, Kagome, Miroku, Sango and Kirara standing in a circle around Gaka and Shippou, who were both cowering low to the ground.

"Dammit!" InuYasha cursed as the very last youkai fell to the ground with a gasp. "Why are the youkai so fuckin' riled up over one human and a shard?"

"I do not understand why this keeps happening," Gaka whimpered as he rose from the ground. "Ever since I have completed my masterpiece, youkai from all over have been trying to kill me! I was lucky enough to outrun them for a day or two, but now..." Gaka trailed off as the sea of blood from the slain youkai started to approach his feet, and he toppled back with a screech of fear.

"What did you say?" Kagome asked, her brow furrowing. "The youkai started chasing you after you finished your painting?"

Gaka rose off of the ground, running one hand through his spiky hair as he tried to calm down. "Yes," he panted, using his other hand to mop his face. "It was three days ago. I had just put the finishing touches on my grand painting. The lord who had commissioned me told me that it was the finest painting he had ever seen, and paid me much gold in return for my services. However, as soon as I was out of the city, I was attacked by a small snake youkai. It was only the fact that I had crossed into a territory with many houshi that I managed to escape the snake, and for that I was exceedingly grateful. The next morning, more and more youkai started following me, and it was only my superior speed that got me this far, and if it had not been for this hanyou, I would be a thing of the past." Gaka sighed as he hoisted his pack of the ground from where he had tossed it prior to the worm youkai attack.

"Damn," InuYasha swore, looking both cross and amused. "You're a walking disaster, ain't ya?"

Gaka bristled slightly. "I most certainly am not. I am the painter Gaka, who has the inner eye, who the Kami have blessed with their sacred gem so I can better replicate nature and her beauties."

"Sacred gem?" Kagome asked, her eyebrows raised. It was the first time that Gaka had admitted to having shikon-no-kakera. "What sacred gem?"

"It was shortly after I saw you in one of the villages, my lady," Gaka sighed dreamily. "I wanted to go back to the castle and begin work on my painting, but I did not want to use those mundane paints they had provided for me. No, I wanted something absolutely divine, something that would capture my Amaterasu and bring respect from whoever saw her painting. This was something that could not be achieved with charcoal inks or plant dyes. I was beginning to despair, and while walking I kicked a stone into a small ditch. That was when I saw it-a bright pink glow from the bottom of the ditch! I dived down and retrieved _this!_" Gaka reached into his pack and drew out a small clay pot. He took off the paper that covered its lip and proudly showed the contents of the pot to Kagome. It was most definitely a shikon-no-kakera, shining despite the lack of light from the heavy foliage of the forest. Its light was completely pure, and Kagome wasn't sure if it was because Gaka had no greed in his soul, or because she was nearby. "I put this godly stone into my inks and paints, and..." Gaka trailed off, his eyes suddenly thoughtful. "Maybe it would be easier to show you," he said, and after he placed the pot back into his pack, he started off once more. "Come along! I will show you my Amaterasu!"

"I'm beginning to think this was a really bad idea," InuYasha grumbled as they followed Gaka through the forest again.

"You think _everything _is a bad idea," Kagome snapped back. "Just give Gaka a chance, all right?"

"Why should I give a crazy baka like him a chance?" he growled, glaring daggers at Gaka.

The artist turned around and fixed InuYasha with a penetrating black stare. "Some might ask the same of you, InuYasha," he said, all traces of joviality absent from his normally friendly voice. InuYasha opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally settled for a "Feh!" and a quiet sulk.

By sunset they didn't seem to be any closer to the city where the castle was, and the morale of the group had slipped several notches, despite the fact that Gaka reassured them that they were actually quite close. "It is only about a twenty mile walk from here," he said as he made tea with an ancient and cracked tea set he had dug out from his pack. "In the morning, we might be venture up a hill and see if we can see the castle from here. If we go high enough, I'm sure we will catch sight of it."

InuYasha just snorted. By now, he was prepared to diss every word that came out of the crazy artist's mouth. _'Baka Gaka!' _he growled to himself.

However, Kagome was much more lenient to the stranger than the others were, mainly because deep down inside her heart, she knew that Gaka meant them no harm. Also, Kagome came from an era of strange people who created beautiful things, whether it be sculptures, paintings, or buildings. By those standards, Gaka was perfectly harmless. When the others had left to do their own thing, she stayed behind and kept the artist company.

"I am glad that you trust me, my lady," Gaka murmured as he passed her some of his tea. "It saddens me greatly that your friends do not feel the same."

"I can see it in your eyes," Kagome said. "You don't mean us any harm." Kagome looked up at the starry sky above as she said, "I've met a lot of people like you. People who can see past ordinary things to the world beyond it. You're pretty rare."

Gaka smiled again, those brilliant white teeth of his flashing in the firelight. "So you know about the inner eye. I am not surprised. One such as you must be a great artist yourself."

Kagome blushed and looked away. "I'm no artist," she mumbled, embarrassed. Instead of meeting Gaka's intent stare, she looked at the others. Miroku and Sango were discussing Kohaku, InuYasha was violently prodding the fire with a stick, and Shippou and Kirara were curled up on the ground. None of them were paying the slightest attention to Kagome and Gaka's conversation. _'Well, InuYasha might be listening,' _Kagome amended as InuYasha jabbed viciously at the fire, a fearsome scowl upon his features.

Gaka got her attention by gently tapping her shoulder. Kagome started and whipped around. Gaka just smiled at her, his eyes suddenly not crazy or frightened like they had been for the past day. His eyes now resembled those of someone who was far older than him, full of ancient wisdoms and knowledge. "One does not have to be a painter to be an artist," Gaka rumbled softly as he took his empty teacup and began to clean it out with a water bottle he had borrowed from Kagome. "One can sing and be called an artist. One can dance and be called an artist. One can even write and be called an artist."

"But I can't do any of those things," Kagome whispered sadly. She hated feeling useless. She hated the fact that she seemed to be in Kikyou's shadow all of the time; Kikyou, who was wise, clever and powerful...everything that Kagome didn't seem to be. With a sigh, Kagome rested her head upon her knees, staring wistfully at the hanyou, who had given up poking the fire after his stick had gone up in flames. Now Gaka's talk about artists was making her feel even more useless than usual.

Gaka, however, walked over and crouched down in front of her. Using the index finger of his right hand, he lifted Kagome's chin off of her knees, moving her face until she was eye to eye with him. "Your gift of befriending anyone who needs a friend is an art form in of itself," he said softly. "All these people sitting around the fire would be roaming by themselves, lost and alone, without your guiding light. Think about that next time you think of yourself as useless." With that, Gaka lifted the half-empty teacup from her hand and said to the group at large, "I think I am going to camp over by that tree over there. There is an excellent view of the moon and stars, and I would not want to miss the night sky."

"Go do whatever you want," InuYasha snarled at him. _'And stay the hell away from Kagome,' _he added mentally.

Kagome was still sitting where Gaka had left her, her eyes wide open and her hand still curled like the cup was still in her grasp. No-one had ever said anything that nice to her, not even Miroku or Sango, and definitely not InuYasha. _'I think I like Gaka,' _she thought pleasantly, a smile spreading across her face as she went over to her backpack and unloaded her sleeping bag. _'He may be a little weird, but then again, who isn't in this group?'_

On the other hand, InuYasha was growing to really dislike Gaka. He didn't like how the artist had managed to befriend Kagome in such a short time, or that he had made her smile with his suave words. Gaka was a smooth-talker like Kouga, but a human like Houjou. Both beings he considered rivals. Gaka, however...InuYasha wasn't sure what he was supposed to think of him. _'I've got my eye on you,' _he silently warned the artist as he settled down against a tree's trunk. Tetsusaiga was nestled in the crook of his elbow, and he was hovering slightly over Kagome's sleeping bag; not enough to be intrusive, but enough to warn _anyone _*coughcough* that might try to sneak into her sleeping bag.

Gaka, however, wasn't the least bit concerned with getting into Kagome's clothes. He was perfectly content to sit under his tree and sketch. After seeing the way Kagome looked at InuYasha, and the fiercely protective way InuYasha hovered over Kagome's bedside, Gaka knew that there was something between the two, and his artist's soul had urged him to draw, to create, to show on paper what human eyes refused to see. Now Gaka held his charcoal in one hand and had spread one of his ragged parchments on the back of his pack. Slowly, carefully, Gaka began to sketch the image that played out in his head.

* * *

As Gaka had predicted, they could see the distant town from the hilltop in the morning. "Wow, that looks like a pretty big city," Kagome commented, although it was nothing like the cities of her era. It was still impressive, with walls surrounding the clusters of richly decorated huts. The dominating feature of the entire city was the gigantic castle that perched at its edge, even more richly decorated than the houses surrounding it.

"Odd," Gaka commented, his brow furrowing.

"What is it, Gaka?" Sango, who was also coming to trust the strange artist after she saw how easily he had cheered Kagome up, now treated him more like a person and less like a rock, although the same couldn't be said for InuYasha and Miroku.

"There are a great many people in the castle-town today. I wonder why." Gaka shrugged, then moved forward, saying, "This way: we are that much closer to seeing my Amaterasu!"

"So what do you think of Gaka now?" Sango whispered to her friend as they followed Gaka.

"He's a little strange at times, but I think he's all right," Kagome whispered back. "I've actually met a lot of people like him in my time; most of the famous artists in history were a little troubled in some way or another. By their standards, Gaka is actually pretty tame."

Sango nodded at this. "Artists are rather like youkai, aren't they? You can never judge all of them just by looking at one of them." Kagome nodded, and the pair of them giggled at the rather strange analogy.

"What in the name of all that's holy are those girls giggling about?" Miroku grumbled, the grip he had on his staff becoming so tight that the veins on his hand stood out in sharp relief.

"I don't wanna know, and I don't wanna find out," InuYasha growled back. Both men didn't like the way the girls were getting more friendly with the artist. They were jealous that the ladies seemed to like him more than they liked them, but the two of them managed to cover it rather well (or so they thought).

Gaka slowed his pace so he could walk with Kagome and Sango, ignoring the glare and the growl he got as he did so. "Methinks that if looks could kill, I would be long dead by now," he stated simply.

"Wha-?" Kagome and Sango both whipped around, fast enough to see InuYasha and Miroku quickly looking into the foliage either side of them. Shippou, who was perched on Miroku's shoulder, shrugged at them, his eyes exasperated, and mouthed, "They're jealous."

"I thought so," Gaka sighed. "They are jealous because I can see behind the smiles you put on your faces and see the pain that you hide so well." Kagome and Sango were both taken aback by this, as were the two men behind them. They hadn't even _considered _that option.

"Are you sure it's not your good looks and persuasive charm?" Kagome said, a giggle in her voice as she batted her eyelashes outrageously.

"Perhaps," Gaka said, his black eyes glinting slightly. "In which case, they are extremely misguided."

The women exchanged a confused look, ignoring the splutters of rage that came from behind them. "What do you mean by 'misguided?'" Sango asked, her brow furrowing as she considered the implications behind the word.

Gaka looked at them, a kind smile on his face. "I do not have any interest in sex, and the greatest love of my life is my artwork. There is no human, youkai or kami out there who would play my heartstrings in such a way as to woo me...no insult to you, Sango-sama, or to you, my lady, but I can only ever feel friendship for someone and never sexual attraction or love."

_'So he's asexual,' _Kagome thought. The thought cheered her up immensely. Sure, it went along with the fact that Gaka was completely and totally obsessed with his work, but it also meant that he didn't want to get on their good side just to get in their pants. It ruled out the 'chivalrous pervert' that Kagome had had of him when he had first introduced himself. She and Sango shared an understanding look before Kagome said, "I think that as long as you're happy, Gaka, then it's all right that you can't love anyone."

Gaka smiled again, his eyes content. Then his face fell slightly. "I only wish I could say the same for you, my lady." Kagome blinked, confused by Gaka's statement. "Are you not in love?" he elaborated. "Are you not suffering daily under the shadow you believe to be cast upon you? Do you not feel like you might die from the feelings you have locked away in your heart, believing them to be foolish and unrequited?"

Before Kagome could even begin to formulate an answer, the group strode right onto the road that led into the city. "Ah, here we are!" Gaka cried, clapping his hands together gleefully. "We managed to make it here in one piece after all! Now, if we can manage it, you will see my wonderful Amaterasu!" With a skip in his step, Gaka seized the elbows of the ladies on either side of him and ushered them into the city, followed closely by a sulking houshi, a growling hanyou and an exasperated kitsune.

_'I don't know what you're planning,' _the men thought in unison, _'but you won't use her to get your way!'_


	4. The City of Amaterasu

The city was _packed, _filled to the gills with people. Merchants, houshis, mikos, headmen, even simple villagers were all abundant in the city streets. All of them were jostling each other and shouting at the top of their lungs. All in all, it rather reminded Kagome of downtown Tokyo during rush hour.

"Well, this is strange," Gaka commented, his brow furrowing. "I have never before seen the city this...full...before. I wonder what could have caused it."

Kagome was about to reply to him when she spotted a couple of merchants who had set up shop on the ground staring at her and whispering. Sango noticed too, jabbing Miroku in the ribs and asking, "I wonder what's up with them?"

Miroku gave a small shrug, the rings on his Shakujou jingling as he did so. "I don't know-what do you think, InuYasha?" InuYasha didn't answer. He was too busy glaring at nothing in particular.

"They are probably staring at Kagome-sama," Gaka commented. "If I am correct in thinking, they might have heard about, or maybe even seen my Amaterasu, and they know that Kagome-sama was my inspiration." As if they had heard him, the merchants put their hands together and bowed, their lips moving in silent prayer. As they did so, other heads soon began turning, and other people started bowing and praying.

"That's...weird," Kagome said nervously. She never liked it when people bowed to her.

"Hmm." Gaka strode forward and knelt before a merchant who was dealing in charcoal and parchments.

"Why are they praying to me?" Kagome asked nervously, as a young couple next to her gasped and instantly started praying as they hurried out of the town.

InuYasha shrugged irritably. "Who fucking cares?" he growled.

Kagome glared at him. "Uh, I do! I don't like it when people stare at me, okay?"

InuYasha glared right back at her and ground out, "Join the club."

"Well, I am now more confused than ever," Gaka said as he returned to the group. "Apparently, all of the people who are staring at Kagome-sama have seen my Amaterasu, but most of these people would not even get past the gates of the castle, let alone get invited to the lord's meeting-room to see my Amaterasu. How very odd." Gaka, who was lost in thought, cast his eye around the crowd, then sat up with a sharp jolt.

"What is it?" Shippou asked from his perch on Miroku's shoulder.

"I can see Harunaka over there; he is a guard at the castle. If anyone can explain what is going on here, it is him." Gaka shifted the pack on his shoulders and headed towards the guard in question, who was currently seated at someone's saké cart.

"Good morning, Harunaka," Gaka greeted as he stood next to the cart nonchalantly. Harunaka, a youngish man with a ratty topnot and a flabby-looking face, hiccuped slightly as he turned towards the artist.

"Whada yer want?" he asked rudely.

"I just wanted to ask about the crowd in the city, Harunaka," Gaka clarified, lifting his hands in a pacifying manner. Harunaka hiccuped again as he turned towards the group standing rather awkwardly behind Gaka.

"Whader those people doin' there?" he gurgled. "Some kinda travelin' kabuki group?"

"We're not a kabuki group!" Kagome cried indignantly.

"We are actually youkai-taijiya, my good man," Miroku calmly added, casually stepping closer to the inebriated guard. "And very good ones, at that."

Harunaka snorted into his saké cup. "Or very good actors."

Gaka quickly intervened before Miroku could bash Harunaka on the head like he so clearly wanted to do. "So, Harunaka, could you please answer my question?"

Harunaka grunted and leaned back on his stool. As he did so, he caught sight of Kagome. "Shit," he guffawed, "tha' whore looks jus' like that picture that guy painted!" Harunaka waved one meaty hand around at the crowd. "Tha's what all these people are here for, ya know? Alla them wanna see the picture. Whell, whoop-de-fuckin'-do, tha's all I'm saying."

Before Gaka could ask his next question, InuYasha walked forward and bopped the man on the head. "Kagome is _not _a whore!" he snarled.

"You would say that," Harunaka grumbled, rubbing the knot on his head. "Whore's probably the on'y way you gonna get any, you bein' a half-breed 'n all."

Once again, Gaka had to intervene (with some help from Kagome) to prevent Harunaka's impending disembowelment by a certain pissed-off hanyou. "Why do they all want to see Amaterasu, Harunaka?" he asked as Kagome tried to calm down a very enraged hanyou while remaining calm herself.

"Cuz one o' the shervants came shcreaming out inna shtreets one night, hollerin' about how the paintin' had a 'holy aura,' or some shit like that." Harunaka gulped down the rest of the saké and reached for the clay jar on the cart's table to get some more drink. When the jar turned out to be empty, Harunaka banged down more gold, and the cart's tenant placed another in its stead. Harunaka picked up the jar and drank greedily, forgoing the cup completely. "Shure enough," he gurgled on, "shome other people turned up an' ahsked ter see ther pantin'. Were willin' ter pay gold fer it, too. Lord'sh been down on hish luck, sho he lettem in. They all shaid that they had sheen the aura, an' it all wen' down'ill from there."

"So all these people are here to pay to see Amaterasu?" Gaka asked, his brow furrowed and a frown on his face as he jerked his thumb towards the mass of people behind him.

"Prolly," Harunaka muttered into his jar. "Lord e'en mada shrine outta one o' the old shtorehoushes, an' has some of ush guardsh gettin' the money from the masshes ash they come in ter shee her."

"Thank you, Harunaka," Gaka said. "Make sure you do not drink too much."

Harunaka snorted again. "No shuch t'ing ash too muchs."

Gaka turned back to the group, the frown still on his face. "I do not like this. I do not like that the lord is using my creation for such unholy purposes."

"What unholy purposes would those be?" Miroku asked, one eyebrow raised.

"He means that he doesn't like the lord scamming people out of their money," Sango replied, glaring at Miroku. "A concept you should be familiar with, houshi."

Miroku looked playfully affronted. "I do not know what you mean, my dear Sango! I only help the needy by exorcising the unseen youkai from their homes; nothing more, and nothing less."

"Yeah, right," InuYasha snorted.

"One does not even need the inner eye to see the liar in this situation," Gaka sighed. Miroku stiffened, his amethyst eyes flashing as the grip he had on his Shakujou tightened considerably. Completely oblivious to the death-glare he was now getting, Gaka clapped his hands and said, "All right, let us go see what they have done with my Amaterasu. Poor thing. She was never intended for anything like this."

"Why are we doing this?" InuYasha grumbled, kicking a patch of dust halfheartedly as they trailed behind Gaka.

"Two reasons," Kagome said, then held up her fingers. "One: Gaka has a shikon-no-kakera that we somehow need to convince him to give to us, and two: The aura that's like a shikon-no-kakera is in the direction everybody's heading." Kagome put her fingers down and gave the two men a rather stern glare. "I know you two don't have a very high approval of Gaka, but can you _please _be more cooperative? It's very rude for you to stand around griping like this!"

"Whatever," InuYasha mumbled, though he said it far beneath Kagome's hearing level.

They continued to weave through the packed streets, although the going was made slightly easier by the fact that everyone who had already seen the painting knew that Kagome looked exactly like the woman in the painting and treated her with the utmost respect, usually resulting in the people giving Kagome a wide berth. The people going to see the painting didn't know that Kagome was the star of the picture, however, and there seemed to be a lot more people going to see the painting than there was people leaving the city.

Finally, they made it to the castle gates, which were wide open to allow the people to come and go as they pleased, although there were guards stationed at the entrance to the actual castle to prevent anyone entering the lord's domicile. "Wow," Shippou said, standing on Miroku's head so he could see better over the mass of human bodies pressed all around them. "I've never seen so many people in one place before. It's kinda strange."

Kagome, who was used to large crowds like this when she went to places like the movies and rock concerts, was nevertheless disconcerted by the sheer amount of people around them. _'I didn't even know there were this many people in the Sengoku jidai,' _she thought as she stared around. "We're almost there," she told Sango. "The aura is getting stronger."

"I hope my Amaterasu is unharmed," Gaka fretted as they neared the gates. "She was never meant for excitement like this. Maybe I should...no, that would not work..." Gaka trailed off, lost in thought as he walked into the courtyard with the rest of the wave of humanity. Sango exchanged a look with Kagome that Gaka missed, but the two men in the back caught perfectly. Then, they giggled. _'If we didn't know any better,' _Sango thought, _'you'd think he was talking about a woman and not a painting.'_

_'Gaka wasn't kidding when he said his art was his greatest love,' _Kagome giggled to herself. _'I wish __**I **__was loved like that.'_

The impromptu shrine was in the lord's courtyard, and it was positively surrounded by people. Two guards were standing at the door, monitoring who went in and who went out. The only comforting factor about this whole situation was the fact that here, more people were coming out of the shrine than going in.

"Halt!" the guards called, crossing their spears in front of the door.

"We just want to see my Amaterasu," Gaka said politely.

"It don't matter if'n it's _your _Amaterasu," the guard on the left sneered, "You still have to pay five gold pieces to see her!"

"That's highway robbery!" Miroku objected.

"So speaks the tiger to the wolf," Gaka muttered under his breath, then said in a louder voice, "I suppose I can pay five gold pieces, then we can come in, right?"

"Oh, was I not clear enough?" the same guard snickered again, while the guard on the right sighed and looked to the sky, clearly asking for patience. "It's five gold pieces for _each _of you."

Gaka blinked, then turned around and quickly did the math in his head. Four humans, one hanyou and two youkai: even if the youkai weren't counted against them, that still measured up to twenty-five gold pieces, and _that _was money Gaka simply didn't have. "I...cannot afford that," he told the guard shamefacedly.

"Yeah? Then yer not gettin' in," the guard replied with a snaggle-toothed grin.

Kagome decided to step forth and see if she could somehow convince the guards to let them pass; after all, she was rather curious about the aura she sensed, which had gotten stronger than ever now. "Isn't there any way we can get in?" she asked as she stepped out from behind Gaka, where she had been waiting.

As soon as she stepped into their line of vision, both guards goggled at her for a few seconds, then both of them snapped sharply to attention. "Didn't even realize...sorry, marm, you and your friends can go in free of charge," the guard on the right said. "Sorry we didn't notice you before."

The guards parted and let the seven people enter the shrine. Now everybody could feel the faint but powerful aura emanating\ from behind the thick curtain which somebody had hung up to prevent the people from seeing the painting from the open doorway.

"Now you shall see my masterpiece," Gaka whispered, then he lifted the curtain aside and entered the room beyond.

There was a collective gasp from the group as they laid eyes on the painting for the first time. Since they hadn't seen any of Gaka's work, they had no idea how well he painted, and they thought that it might just be the aura that drew the people there. All of their theories were blown out of their heads when they saw the magnificent painting.

Painted upon a fifteen-foot tall scroll was the most beautiful woman that any of them had ever seen. She wore the simplest of clothes, which consisted of light silks and battle-armor, and her hair floated free from her shoulders, black, but with every tint of the rainbow painted into her ebony tresses. Her forehead was decorated with some kind of headdress which gave her the look of a regal and long-lost queen. The background was just as incredible as the painting itself. If Kagome hadn't known any better, she would have thought that Gaka had managed to bottle sunlight and used it to paint the background of the beautiful goddess. Her entire body was wreathed in warm golden light, so real that Kagome wondered crazily why this room wasn't on fire. But it was the painting's aura that stunned everyone the most. The painting of Amaterasu emitted a calming, perhaps even divine aura. Everyone felt it wash over them, soothing and healing, a caress from an unseen breeze. To stand in the painting's presence was to feel that perhaps everything might be all right after all. Counting up all that, Amaterasu was absolutely magnificent.

"Wow," someone said, although no-one was quite sure who said it.

"Let us try to get a little closer," Gaka whispered as he moved forwards.

As they moved closer, everyone could now see why all the people in town had been bowing and praying to Kagome. The beautiful painting of Amaterasu looked very much like Kagome in battle-armor, and seeing as the picture looked so real that it seemed like Amaterasu could walk off the scroll, it was no wonder that many people thought Kagome came from the painting and not the other way around.

"It's beautiful," Sango murmured. Miroku, Kagome and Shippou nodded dumbly in agreement. InuYasha just huffed. He was hard-put to compliment anything of Gaka's, but it really was a rather beautiful painting.

"Gaka," Kagome whispered, awe and respect clearly shining in her voice, "how on Earth did you manage to paint such a beautiful painting? It's the best painting I've ever seen!"

Gaka smiled radiantly. "Let us depart from this madhouse and I will tell you."

So they left, and Gaka led them to an inn, where they could set up shop for the night, since the time seemed to have run away from them yet again. "It was a challenge; painting my Amaterasu," Gaka said as the inn attendants brought in some food for their repast. "First, I needed a perfect model, which I found in you, my lady." He respectfully inclined his head to Kagome, who blushed. "Then I found the gemstone that the Kami sent me, and I put it in an ordinary pot of black ink. Lo and behold, the ink started changing colors right before my eyes! All I had to do was immerse myself in what my painting should look like, and the Kami did the rest for me! It was splendid, absolutely splendid!" Gaka sighed dreamily and looked out through the open door at the inn's gardens.

Kagome, InuYasha and Miroku all looked at each other skeptically. While it was true that Gaka was not nearly as mad as Kotatsu had been, it was clear that the power of the shikon-no-kakera had gotten to his head. If he wasn't careful, Gaka would probably end up selling his soul for his next masterpiece.

"Don't get me wrong, Gaka-san," Miroku said cautiously, "but are you sure that it's a good thing to go into a trance like that? For all you know, this gemstone of yours isn't from the Kami."

Gaka bristled, his black eyes becoming as hard as flint. "It _is_ a gift from the Kami; I painted a beautiful painting with it, a painting the Kami themselves would be happy to own if they could. Do not speak to me of such heresy." He turned away, muttering, "A houshi, of all people."

_'Just another way of proving that you shouldn't go for looks alone,' _Kagome thought. Now she _definitely _knew that Gaka was like the artists in her time; perfectly sane one moment, ranting and raving the next. Gaka, meanwhile, had taken out his sketch-parchment and a charcoal stick and was drawing something, his tongue sticking out from between his teeth as the charcoal moved skillfully over the parchment, pausing here and there as Gaka considered his work.

Night fell totally and completely not long afterward, and Gaka soon stood up, stretched and headed outside to the gardens, calling out, "I am going to sleep outside. I can never get used to the indoors like most people." The artist gently closed the door behind him as he settled in the sparse grass of the garden for the night.

As soon as he was gone, the others leaned in and began talking to each other. "Should we tell him that it's a shikon-no-kakera he carries?" Miroku asked, his amethyst eyes grave.

"I don't know, he might take it badly. You saw how he reacted when we hinted that it wasn't a divine gift," Kagome pointed out. "Maybe we should tell him that his fortunes'll only get worse if he continues to carry the shard. After all, the Shikon-no-Tama brings despair to whoever comes in contact with it. If he learns this, maybe-"

InuYasha snorted and interrupted with, "Yeah, right. He's crazy! You heard how he ranted about the trance he went into. He's completely insane and can't be trusted with good judgment."

Kagome looked at him, her mouth lifting in a sardonic smile. "InuYasha, since when have you ever used good judgment?" InuYasha flushed and looked away, muttering darkly to himself.

"What about that painting?" Shippou asked as he gnawed on some of the dried meats that the servants had brought (and everyone else had forgotten). "Why does it have an aura like that?"

Kagome leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as she thought. "Well," she said slowly, "Kotatsu's youkai paintings had youki because of his ambition and greed, so maybe Gaka's devotion to his art and his feelings about the Kami are reflected in his painting. The shikon-no-kakera he carries is absolutely pure, like the painting. He may be crazy, but he isn't impure." Kagome did have a point; Gaka was nothing if not devoted to his work. If he did have one flaw, it was that he was devoted to his art to the point of total obsession.

"How about we sleep on it?" Sango suggested. "We might be able to make a better decision in the morning." Everyone (with the exception of InuYasha, who thought that they were being 'puny humans' again) agreed with Sango's statement, and soon everyone had settled down to rest.

* * *

Gaka sat in the garden, working by starlight to finish his sketch for a new masterpiece. He didn't know why this scene had played out in his head when he had looked at InuYasha and Kagome, but his artist's soul had begged him to draw, paint and breath life into what he was sure was a scene from the future. As the last line was drawn into place, Gaka leaned back and admired his work.

_'Truly one of my better ideas,' _he thought, absurdly pleased with himself. Now, if only he could start painting it without attracting too much attention from his new friends...

Gaka smiled to himself as he mixed some of his charcoal with water, mixing it to form a crude paste, to which he added his shikon-no-kakera. The effect was immediate: the crude ink flashed and frothed, becoming a strange, rainbow-tinted mixture. Gaka selected a horsehair paintbrush from his pack, spread out one of the nicer parchments he had bought in the city that very day, and began to paint the scene depicted in his sketch.


	5. Ashes and Blood

"AAAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEE!"

Everyone in the room jerked awake as the scream ripped through the tranquil night like a knife through silk. Soon other screams began following the first, along with guttural laughter and terrible ripping and tearing sounds. "Youkai!" InuYasha spat, leaping up and tearing out of the door, followed closely by his friends. Gaka was quailing in the garden, shivering madly as the chaotic sounds got louder and louder. Flames were leaping up in the town as the youkai careened madly through the streets.

"What is going on?" Gaka whimpered, clutching a scroll to his chest.

"Youkai, baka!" InuYasha snapped, drawing Tetsusaiga with a flourish and turning towards the source of the fire. "There are fucking youkai here!"

"But...but why? What reason would they have for coming here now? Youkai have never bothered this city before," Gaka moaned, clutching the scroll even tighter to his chest.

Sango noticed that there was a pot of some glowing substance grasped in the fist of his left hand, tucked securely under his armpit. "Gaka..." she started, her voice slightly accusatory, "Were you painting out here?"

Gaka looked slightly ashamed, like a five-year old who had been caught stealing cookies. "I...I had such a wonderful idea for a painting, and I had just finished the sketch several hours ago. I...I could not _not _paint; the urge just consumed me, and now..." Gaka trailed off as several youkai flew overhead, red eyes scouring the lands for the shikon-no-kakera their instincts told them was present.

"Walking disaster," InuYasha muttered to himself, then he shouted, "C'mon, everyone! Let's go!" After that, he leaped off towards the source of the flames and screams.

"Kirara, stay here with Gaka and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, all right?" Sango's command was met with a small mew as the fire-neko transformed into her sabre-toothed form and squatted beside Gaka, who was looking positively faint.

"Quick! Let's follow InuYasha!" Kagome cried, and the three humans, minus Kirara and Shippou (who had decided to stay behind) charged after their hanyou friend.

The overly crowded city was now a bloody war zone. Youkai of every size and race slaughtered humans left and right, some leaving off the hunt for a shikon-no-kakera to devour the bodies of the slain. Fire leaped from building to building to crumbled building, turning wood and flesh alike to black ash. Somewhere close to the city's center, a gigantic oni was gnawing away at a slain guard, crunching armor and bones with its large fangs as it sated its hunger with human flesh.

A shout from behind it made it turn around. "Over here, ugly!"

InuYasha leaped over a building and landed in front of the oni, who was standing in front of the main bloodbath. "You wanna get out of my way and save your fuckin' life?" InuYasha growled as he brandished his Tetsusaiga. The oni grunted and went back to its gristly feast. With a jolt, InuYasha realized that the human he was devouring was none other than Harunaka the guard, his meaty face fixed in an almost comical look of drunken dismay. "Bastard!" he cried, and swung Tetsusaiga. The oni's head toppled to the ground as the pitiful remainder of Harunaka's corpse hit the earth with mundane finality. InuYasha looked at him for a few seconds, then gave a "Feh," and rushed off towards the main body of youkai, Tetsusaiga glowing orange and crimson from the rapidly spreading flames.

Several minutes later, Miroku, Sango and Kagome had caught up with InuYasha, and they were all in battle with the seemingly endless youkai that filled the night sky with writhing, wrathful bodies. Many corpses littered the ground along with the remains of smashed buildings and carts, and what survivors there were were huddling on the ground, depending on their protectors to defend them from the youkai horde.

"How many fuckin' youkai are there?" InuYasha swore as he unleashed the Kaze-no-Kizu on a bunch of unsuspecting youkai, all of which fell in bloody chunks to the ground below.

"Far too many to count, my friend," Miroku said as he dispatched a sizable group of youkai himself with a handful of ofuda. It seemed to the fighters that when one youkai fell, another three jumped up to take its place. Soon, the survivors were surrounded by fearsome, slavering, blazing-eyed youkai, so many that their surroundings were blocked out by twisting enemies.

"InuYasha!" The faint cry came from the direction of the castle, even though they could barely see it through the youkai and smoke.

"The castle's on fire!" Kagome cried as she loosed an arrow towards another group of youkai. Indeed the majority of the smoke came from the direction of the castle, and it was also where Shippou's voice had come from.

"Shit!" InuYasha tried to turn and run to the castle to save his friends, but the pressing wall of youkai prevented his advance. Tetsusaiga glowed brightly before transforming into the diamond Tetsusaiga. The hanyou swung the sword and released thousands of glittering diamond spears at the youkai. No good-the youkai continued to advance.

"InuYasha!" Shippou's cry was louder now, as he, Kirara and Gaka descended from on high, leaving the blazing ruins in a flash of fire.

"What the _hell _were you doing in the castle?" InuYasha yelled as Kirara landed on a youkai that was struggling to crawl for safety. "I thought we told you not to do anything _stupid!_"

"I know, but Gaka wanted to save his painting, and he was gonna go off without us if we didn't go with him!" Shippou cried as he cowered on Kirara's head.

"Gaka wanted to _what?_" Everyone shouted now, and everyone glared at Gaka, who was sitting on Kirara's back. Now that they were focused on him, they noticed that he was clutching a gigantic scroll in his hands.

"Gaka, you should've left the painting behind!" Kagome cried as a new wave of youkai came, all of them trying to get to Gaka and the shikon-no-kakera he carried. "There's more to life than a painting, and besides, it has an aura like a shikon-no-kakera! Let it go or you'll be killed!"

"I do not care about auras or life!" Gaka cried, and unfurled his scroll to show off the painting once more. "My Amaterasu is my life, and I will not let her burn and shrivel to dust like a common campfire! She is my love, my life, my heart! I WILL NOT LET HER DIE!"

If Kagome wasn't in the middle of a fight, she would've groaned at that moment. _'Jeez, Gaka,' _she thought, _'talk about waving a red flag...' _The aura and the picture did have the effect of a red flag on the youkai; all of them went crazy with lust for the multiple shards that they thought were present, and they all charged once again, fangs bared in fearsome snarls.

"Enough!" Miroku stuck his Shakujou in the ground and grasped the rosary on his right arm. "Stand behind me, friends!" InuYasha, Kagome, Sango, Shippou and Kirara recognized the danger and quickly dove for cover, Kirara taking Gaka along with her. "KAZAANA!" The beads flew off and the full brunt of the Kazaana was unleashed on the youkai horde. The effect was immediate: all of the youkai were sucked towards the void in the houshi's hand and were sent away to oblivion, all of them screeching and wailing as they tumbled and careened through the air, every last one of them fighting to escape their inescapable doom.

When the last youkai had vanished into the void, Miroku sealed up his Kazaana; then he collapsed upon the ground. "Urrgh," he groaned, "I think I may have overtaxed my Kazaana." Sango went over to him and put her hands on his shoulders, offering the houshi comfort with her presence, and it was a mark of how poorly Miroku was feeling that he didn't try to feel her up while she pressed herself to him.

Kagome went over to InuYasha and asked, "Are you okay, InuYasha? You took a few hits back there."

"Feh! I'll be all right, Kagome," InuYasha muttered as he sheathed Tetsusaiga, a blush staining his cheeks bright red.

Kagome gave him a radiant smile, the kind that made him feel like his brain had turned to mush. "I'm so glad." InuYasha's blush became deeper as he turned away, mumbling nonsense words under his breath.

Meanwhile, Gaka had recovered from his brief bout of insanity and had started looking around the city. "What a horror," he whispered, clutching Amaterasu's scroll to his chest. "So many dead. So much destruction." Gaka stumbled about, his mouth opening and closing as his eyes took on a glazed look.

Kagome looked around her, surveying the damage with a practiced, if not inexperienced eye. Indeed, the destruction was horrible: the bodies of the dead and dying were often stacked five deep, and the fire was spreading uncontrollably, devouring the remainder of the buildings. With a deep, earth-shaking rumble, the fiery castle collapsed as the lowest structure became too weak to support the upper levels. _'No doubt about it,' _Kagome thought sadly as she looked over at the weeping survivors, _'This is one of the worst battle scenes I've ever seen, and that's saying something.'_

"Let's try to help out," she said. "Maybe there are some more survivors somewh-" A shiver ran down her spine as her awareness tingled. Something malevolent was approaching; something that the Kazaana had failed to capture. _'A youkai,' _she thought. _'But where-?'_

It happened in that split second: a rat youkai leaped out from behind a burning hut, his red eyes blazing with hate, something that looked like a primitive javelin grasped in his claw. **"Yew bastards!" **he howled, his hatred-laden red gaze fixed on InuYasha and Gaka. **"Yew got me mates kilt, an' I'll see ter it that yew go ta Hell for it!" **The rat threw the javelin, aiming directly for Gaka, who hadn't been paying attention since the roaring of the flames had managed to drown out his shouts to the humans who weren't close enough to hear him.

"Gaka, look out!" Kagome cried, and leaped forward, her hands outstretched, ready to push the artist aside. Her hands hit the small of his back and sent him flying, right when the javelin was about to hit him in the throat. InuYasha, who had heard Kagome's shout, turned around in time to see the javelin strike Kagome in the shoulder and sink deep into her flesh. Kagome gave a small "oh" before she collapsed to the ground, blood seeping around the wound in her shoulder.

**"Uh-o," **the rat mumbled nervously. **"Time ta go."** The rat turned around and fled once more into the night.

Luckily for him, InuYasha was too distracted by the sight of Kagome on the ground, blood seeping out of her shoulder, to be too interested in where the rat was going. "Kagome!" he cried, and in a microsecond he was at her side, one arm curled about her waist while the other hand fluttered ineffectually around the wound as he tried to figure out how to staunch it. "Kagome, speak to me!" he yelped, shaking her slightly to get her to respond.

Kagome's eyes fluttered open. "Ouch," she whispered weakly.

"Ouch?" If InuYasha hadn't been so relieved that Kagome was alive, he probably would've been more sarcastic at that moment. "Ouch? You almost got killed and all you can say is _ouch?_" The hanyou's voice cracked on the last word, and he buried his face in her hair, glad that Kagome seemed to be okay. She was still wounded, but as she had once said some time back, 'Where there's life, there's hope.'

"We need to get out of here," he growled, then he turned to the survivors. "Do you know where the nearest village is?" he demanded. They all nodded fervently. "Then head over there as fast as your legs can carry you; don't stop for _anything, _if you can help it!" The survivors nodded and darted away in twos and threes, some of them supporting a wounded family member or friend as they fled the aftermath of the youkai attack. InuYasha turned back towards his friends and gently lifted Kagome off of the ground. "We need to find a healer," he said. "The wound ain't serious, but if it goes untreated..." InuYasha let the sentence hang in midair as he leaped away, followed closely by his friends.

Behind them, the last of the once-magnificent city succumbed to the fire, sinking into ashes as the hungry fire devoured all and left none.

It was hard for them to believe that they had only come to that city that morning.


	6. Darkness of the Past and Present

The group traveled as far as they could manage in one night, putting as much distance as possible between the inferno and themselves before they stopped to set up camp. Kagome was gently placed on her sleeping bag, her face deathly pale and sweaty. Grimly aware of the hanyou breathing down her neck, Sango examined her friend's wound. The rat youkai had not been aiming for her, so the attack didn't do as much damage as it could have, but the outlook was still grim. Even worse, the javelin's haft had snapped when she had hit the ground, meaning that its head was not going to come out easily.

"The best I can do is bandage the wound up and keep it disinfected, Kagome-chan," Sango said apologetically as she reached for Kagome's backpack, which had luckily made it through the fight with the youkai. Kagome bit her lip to keep herself from crying out when Sango swabbed the area around the javelin's broken haft, cleaning the wound and wiping away some of the blood that still trickled out from around the splintered haft. InuYasha growled and shifted around slightly, wishing he could do more to help Kagome than just sit and do nothing. However, it was the woman lying wounded on the ground who usually tended to his wounds, and before that...well, fifty-one years ago, InuYasha would've preferred death over letting a human care for him. All of this meant that InuYasha had about as much knowledge about medicine as a mole had about the sky.

"Okay, Kagome-chan, I'm done," Sango said as she finally pulled away. Her hands were stained with blood and the cleansing fluid, as were several of the crumpled wipes beside her. Kagome's shoulder had been bandaged to the best of Sango's ability, but the haft of the javelin still peeped out through the bandages.

"Thanks, Sango-chan," Kagome said feebly as she tried to relax into her sleeping bag. She winced when the javelin threatened to cut deeper into the muscles of her shoulder. Twinges of pain throbbed throughout her entire body as her shoulder protested the motion. "Ow," she groaned as she rolled over onto her uninjured shoulder.

InuYasha leaped up from where he was sitting and rushed over to her, unable to sit still any longer. "Dammit, Kagome, are you _sure _there isn't anything I can do to help?" he asked, his voice frantic and his eyes desperate.

"Yes," she moaned. "I need to take some painkillers, but I don't have any water to drink. Could you get me something?" InuYasha nodded. Just what he needed, a run in the forest to take his mind off things. Sango rummaged around in Kagome's bag and found one of her empty water bottles. She handed it to InuYasha, who took off into the depths of the forest.

Gaka, who had been recovering from the events in the city, came over to Kagome's bedside and sat down beside her. "I think that hanyou really does care for you, you know," he said gently.

Kagome blushed slightly, her face pale enough to make the colors clash unpleasantly. "He cares, in his own way," she murmured, "but there's...there's someone else."

"Ah." Gaka wisely decided not to press the matter any further and promptly changed the subject. "I do not think I will be able to get any sleep tonight, after what I have seen. It has reminded me too much of my childhood." Gaka shuddered and looked out at the almost full moon, his eyes distant and dull.

"What happened, Gaka-san?" Miroku asked, also willing to change the subject from Kikyou and Kagome's heartache.

"Well..." Gaka still looked at the stars, his eyes distant as the years seemed to roll backwards. His face was almost that of a reluctant child's; a child who was living in a fantasy world and didn't want to see the harsh reality that lay beyond it. Then Gaka sighed and looked down at the ground. "I originally came from the Eastern lands. My family was more prosperous than most, due to the fact that we lived by the ocean and could make our living by fishing and collecting shells to make jewelry. Even back then, when I was only a young lad of nine, I had a passion for art, although it wasn't as...all-consuming as it is now. I loved to draw everything; animals, people, my parents, my older brother..." Gaka trailed off again as his eyes shone briefly; a young boy reliving a particularly good fantasy.

"Little did I know that our lands had been targeted by one of the lords for his own use; he wanted to turn it into a sea-port so that he could control the waters and the fish that swam there. However, he didn't want any of the other lords to declare war on him, so he hired a local mercenary band...the Shichinintai."

Miroku stiffened, Sango gasped and Kagome moaned softly. The Shichinintai had been a murderous band of seven people who could do the work of an entire army. Nearly one decade ago, they had terrorized the East before they had been caught and beheaded by the warlords who had hired them. Recently they had been resurrected by Naraku so that they could serve as a shield against InuYasha and the rest of the people who hunted him while the dark hanyou rebuilt his body. They had been incredibly tough to beat, even though they were still human, and the entire group had nearly died at one point or another during the long fight with the Shichinintai.

"The Shichinintai?" Miroku asked. "Are you sure?"

Gaka shivered as he replied, "Oh, yes, I am dead sure. I remember seeing them approaching the village. No-one could believe their eyes; we had heard the rumors of a band of seven men who could do the work of an army, but no-one really believed it. Most of us just thought that it was a story to tell one's children at night and nothing more. But here they were; seven men, each one of them a murderer in his own right. Only a minute passed before the headman ordered everyone who could fight to gather the bows, poles, hatchets, anything that could be used as a weapon. My mother, who, like me, possessed the inner eye, knew that the resistance we put up would be nothing compared to their power. She took me to the beach and put me in my father's fishing boat. Then she told me, 'Do not come out of this boat, no matter what happens, do you understand?' I nodded, and she left. I wanted her to come back, to come hide with me, but she wanted to stand by my father and my older brother." Gaka shuddered, the convulsions chasing each other up and down his spine as he retold the tale of his past. "I hid under the seat and prayed to the Kami, prayed that everything would be all right, prayed that we could defeat the Shichinintai. I prayed in vain; the screaming started up shortly after I had hidden, followed by tremendous explosions and the _whoosh _of fire as they set light to the village. I decided that I wanted to see what was going on. I peeked out over the edge of the boat and was greeted by a bloodbath. They were slaughtering my people like you might chop vegetables; most of them didn't even seem to be _trying. _I remember the tears falling down my face as I could do nothing but watch as the people I had lived with all of my life fell like grass to a sickle. The blood flowed like great rivers and the fire leaped higher and higher, turning the sky black even though it was high noon. Inevitably, one of the warriors looked over and saw me sitting in the boat. I remember him well; even though he was not a youkai, he had sharp blades on each of his hands like fearsome claws and terrible markings on his face. My mother saw him looking at me, so she did something I can never forget. She ran out, managing to move faster than the murderer even though she was heavily pregnant, and pushed the boat out onto the ocean. She...she could not escape...could not..." Gaka broke off with a whimpering sob as he buried his head in his knees, overcome by the grief that he had buried long ago.

Sango bit her lip as tears swam in her own eyes. She could relate to Gaka's situation more than anyone else in the group, since Naraku and his youkai had massacred her entire village of youkai-taijiya. Miroku wrapped an arm around her, comforting her while he reached out with his other hand and placed it on Gaka's shoulder. Kagome couldn't really move because of the javelin, but she also felt tears pooling in her eyes.

They could all understand where Gaka's madness and his passion for art came from now. The pain of seeing his entire village slaughtered when he was only nine would've broken any other person beyond repair. At least Sango hadn't been a little girl _watching _the youkai kill her people, but an almost grown woman who had heard about her village's demise and had later seen the aftermath of the fight. She had managed to keep her sanity intact, although she did have an insatiable thirst for revenge for the deaths of her people, sometimes to the point where she would sacrifice her own life in exchange for vengeance. Gaka's obsession with his art was probably like how InuYasha and Sango both dampened the pain in their hearts by fighting: it was just a way to fight off the heartache. It was the only thing left that he had to love, and the only thing he could treasure from his childhood.

When InuYasha returned, he found that the camp was much more subdued than it had been when he had left. "What's wrong?" he asked worriedly, thinking that Kagome had gotten worse, or even...he dared not to finish that thought.

Gaka just shook his head. "Just thinking of the past," he mumbled in a tear-choked voice. InuYasha understood more than anything the reluctance to reveal painful memories, so he went over to Kagome.

"I got the water for you," he said, shaking the now full bottle at her. Kagome nodded, then tried to sit up, wincing when the movement jarred her injured shoulder. InuYasha carefully wrapped an arm about her waist and helped her to sit up, allowing her good shoulder to rest on his chest while he handed her the water. Moving carefully so as not to jar her hurt shoulder, she grabbed the bottle of painkillers and popped down a couple of pills.

"So what's with the sudden mood-change?" he asked in a low whisper. "Did something happen?"

Kagome shook her head and said, "Gaka told us about his past. He said that his entire village was murdered by the Shichinintai when he was only nine."

"Fuckin' hell," InuYasha swore. "No wonder he's so messed up."

Kagome nodded. "Seeing something like that would mess any kid up. It's a wonder he isn't completely out of his mind twenty-four seven, with all the things he's seen."

InuYasha nodded, then sneaked a peek at Gaka's subdued form. Gaka's family being murdered by the Shichinintai when he was little was something he would never have expected to have happened. Kagome was right; anyone else in the artist's shoes would have gone totally and completely off the deep end. While Gaka had his crazy moments, he was usually a pretty rational thinker. Like it or not, InuYasha now had a grudging respect for Gaka.

After that, everybody just sat around in silence since no-one really wanted to talk to anyone else. Kagome quickly fell into a drug-induced sleep, her head lolling on InuYasha's shoulder as she snoozed. InuYasha was loath to put Kagome down, but he didn't want everyone else watching them. Luckily for him, everyone else was too wrapped up in their own thoughts to really notice him holding Kagome.

"Miroku, d'you think you can put up some sort of barrier so we don't have to worry about an ambush while we're sleeping?" InuYasha hissed, trying very hard not to wake the sleeping woman in his arms. Miroku nodded, not wanting to wake Shippou or Kirara, who they had discovered to be sleeping on a patch of grassy ground not too far away from the campfire. The houshi stood up and began placing some of his ofuda on the surrounding trees, muttering a prayer as he placed each and every one.

Gaka stayed awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep, staring at the distant stars unseeingly as the terrible film of the past replayed itself over and over in his mind. The artist shook his head, then removed his pack and opened it, rooting around for the paintings that took refuge in the battered receptacle. One by one, he removed the scrolls until he had quite a large pile beside him. Then he took his time in perusing them. The earliest painting was a black, orange and red rendition of the day his childhood ended. It depicted seven men standing in a field of corpses with flames leaping and writhing behind them. All of them were saturated in blood; it dripped from their hands and stained their various weapons bright red. Gaka shuddered again. This painting was the result of his first fit of madness, the first time he had ever become less than fully conscious of himself. It was a reminder that no matter how much money he made and how much prestige he got, Gaka would never be able to forget where he came from. Gaka rolled the painting back up and picked up another one. Ah. This was the painting he had been working on when the youkai had attacked the castle. It was only half-finished, but it promised to be almost as good as his Amaterasu when it was completed. Gaka laughed to himself, then he took out his ink-pot, refreshed it with some of Kagome's water and began to paint again.

The painting depicted three possible futures he could see for the two people sleeping together on his left. Gaka didn't know which one would be _their _future, and he knew that it could, in fact, be none of them. But still he painted, still his brush moved across the parchment to bring the characters to life. It was the only way he could think of to distract himself from the pain in his heart. The only finished part of the painting was the first foreseeable future: a shrine surrounded by sakura blossoms, with two formally dressed people reciting their wedding vows to the surrounding crowd. After that, the painting sort of went downhill from there. The second part of the painting, the one he was working on now, was of the two people sitting next to him embracing for the last time. They floated in what looked like starlight and blackness, both glowing with ethereal light; one red, one blue. Or, at least, they _would _when Gaka finished the painting. The third part...the third part was definitely the worst part to come. Gaka had only sketched that part, but he knew what it would look like. The sky would be as red as freshly shed blood, the clouds nothing more than old scabs on a gruesome wound. The ground would be cracked and dead, ravished by some unknown evil. They would be sitting together; he would be holding her like he was now, but with one gaping exception: the woman in the hanyou's painted arms would never wake up again. Tears would be streaming down the hanyou's face as he wept over her body. Gaka shivered again, then resumed painting.

_'Fate is up to the Kami,' _he thought sadly. _'If it was up to humanity to decide what their fate would be, there would never be any unfortunate deaths in this world. If it were up to me, no-one would ever have to suffer the loss of a loved one.''_

* * *

The rat youkai was running hard and fast, not caring what lay beyond the horizon as he put all his energy into absconding. When the rat had thrown the javelin at the artist with the shard, he hadn't noticed that he was with the hanyou who had killed his companions, or that he had hit the same hanyou's female by mistake. All youkai knew that the only way to repay a mate's murder was to slaughter their murderer: an eye for an eye. Afraid of facing the hanyou's retribution, the rat had turned tail and run.

Much later, the rat had to come to a stop. He was exhausted; his thin fur was drenched with sweat, his skinny chest heaving with pants and his dry black tongue hanging out over his cracked lips. **"I could go fer some water," **he gasped to no-one in particular; he was far too used to complaining to stop now. He collapsed by the side of a reeking swamp and began sucking gratefully at the steaming water. It was nasty, but the rat was not about to turn his snout up at water, smelly and filthy or not.

The gray fur on the back of the rat's neck stood up straight as a shiver crawled down his spine. Something..._evil, _far more evil than the rat was coming, and the rat wasn't about to stay around and say hello. Squeaking like the ordinary rat he had once been, the youkai leaped behind a rotting log and cowered in the shadows, his red eyes blinking slowly as he tried to calm his racing heartbeat. Whatever it was that was out there in the swamp wasn't loud, or large or making any territorial sounds. However, the aura it produced made the rat gag. It was like inhaling death, death that stung the nose and throat as it spread throughout the body. The rat began to back away slowly, hoping against hope that whatever had taken up refuge in the swamp would either be on its way or else not notice one rat youkai running for the hills.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't notice you?"

The rat froze, the instinct to get away warring with the instinct to try and blend into his surroundings. The voice was like the aura; cold and merciless. It was the voice of a killer who stalked in the shadows, the spider who wove an intricate web, then sat back so that his prey could strangle themselves as they blundered unseeingly into the sticky strands. The rat slowly peeked out from behind his log, frightened at what he might see.

At first he was confused. Surely this was only a human male, finely dressed and completely out of place in the swamp. What was he doing here? Then the rat's eyes focused on the finer details of his appearance: the hair like black seaweed, which looked like it might come to life and strangle him at any second, the three long tails protruding from his back, the bony crests on his shoulders, and the eyes on his hands and chest. But it was the eyes in his face that made the rat feel true terror. They were red, but despite the violent color they were utterly cold and contemptuous, as if the being held every living thing beneath him. The eyes of a mass-murderer.

The rat tried to weasel his way out of trouble. **"Ya don't want me, I'm jus'n ordinary rat youkai," **he squeaked as he tried to back away again. **"Jus' at the wrong place 'n time is all!"**

"You certainly are at the wrong place at the wrong time," the being said, his eyes glinting evilly. "I'm afraid that can't go unpunished."

The rat knew then that the stranger wanted to kill him. Fear pounded through his body, making him want to bolt, or beg. He didn't want to test the strange being's running ability, so the rat went with begging, however futile it might be. **"I...I'm jus'n ordinary rat youkai!" **he wailed again, his bald tail writhing in his agitation. **"I was busy runnin' from tha' hanyou, I can't hurt no-one! Please, sir, I'm not gonna do anyfink to ya 'cept leave an umpleasant stain on yore blade! Lemme go, please!"**

The stranger paused in his advance, his eyes suddenly curious. "Hanyou? What did he look like?"

The rat saw a chance to prolong his impending doom and seized it with both claws. **"Long silver 'air. Gold'n eyes. Big katana. Dog ears. Red clothing." **The rat collapsed on the ground, his stubby legs having finally given up on him. **"Now lemme go, sir! I've told ya all I know! I don't want nufink ta do wit ya, an' I sointently don't want nufink ta do wit that hanyou, or wit the Shikon-no-Tama! Lemme go!"**

"Does that hanyou have a shikon-no-kakera, then?" the stranger asked, his eyes now taking on a greedy look. "Tell me and I might consider letting you go free."

The rat was only too happy to spill his guts. **"I don't fink so, not when I was there. But there's an artist travelin' wit'em, an' **_**'e **_**had the shard, las' I was there. Still might 'ave it, for all I know. Now lemme go, **_**please.**_**" **

The stranger raised one black eyebrow. "Just...one last question. Why did you run from InuYasha?"

The rat scratched his greasy head with one claw, confused. **"InuYasha? D'you mean that hanyou?" **The stranger nodded, a smirk on his face. **"I was runnin' cuz I tried ta kill the artist, but I 'it 'is liddle filly instead. Dunno how. Now I wanna go. Lemme run away, an' I promise not ta be a thorn in yer side."**

The stranger seemed to be thinking. "You're too cowardly to be a good addition to my body, and you know far, far too much for a youkai of your standing." The stranger gave him a smile that on someone else's face would have been positively radiant, but on this being's face it was like an eclipse. The rat knew then that the stranger never had any intention of sparing his life; he'd just seen a chance to milk the rat for information, and he used it. The rat turned around and promptly fled. He only made it three paces before the stranger's hand flashed in a crimson arc. The rat's head thudded to the ground as his body continued running for about fifteen feet before realizing that it was supposed to be dead. The rat's dimming red eyes fixed on the stranger's fading form, his mouth lolling open in disbelief.

**"Yew...prick..." **he gasped, then he died, his body and head turning into ash that was quickly absorbed into the ground.

Naraku gave the small pile of ashes a small smile as he rose into the air, his barrier shimmering around him as the Saimyoushou gathered around the shimmering shield. "Find InuYasha and his little group," he told them. "When you find them, tell me." The obedient bugs flew off in different directions, ready to scour the lands for their master's enemies.

Naraku smiled again as he looked up at the stars. _'Soon, the Shikon-no-Tama will be completed, and my enemies rotting in Hell. Naraku will win, and the world will be purged of all those weak humans and their weak human emotions.'_

_'I will finally be rid of Kikyou.'_


	7. Surgery and the Sacred Tree

InuYasha and company managed to make it back to Kaede's village in record time, which was a very good thing; Kagome's shoulder wound wasn't getting any better. On the morning of the second day out of the castle, she was in so much pain that InuYasha had to carry her if she wanted to do anything, whether it be get a drink or sit by the fire.

It was with great feelings of relief that the village of the Bone-Eater's Well came into view later that afternoon, coupled with anxiety, as Kagome had spent the latter half of the trip in complete unconsciousness. The sun was just beginning to set in the West when InuYasha smacked aside the reed mat covering the entrance to Kaede's hut. The miko in question looked up, her one eye confused, then alarmed as she took in the wild-eyed hanyou and the unconscious miko in his arms.

"Babaa, you have to help Kagome!" InuYasha barked as the others slowly trailed in behind him. "She's been hurt, and-"

"Let me see," Kaede interrupted, putting down her tea as she hauled herself to her feet. "Where is the wound?"

InuYasha silently whispered an apology as he put his hand on Kagome's shoulder and ripped away the material that covered the bandaged wound and the splintered half of the javelin's haft. Kaede studied the wound with a professional eye (literally). "The wound is not particularly harmful. I suspect that the weapon is touching something deep inside Kagome that is causing her intense pain." Kaede went over to a small wooden box where she kept the things she needed for the rare times when she needed to do surgery. She took from it a small knife, a spool of coarse thread and a bone needle. "Sango, I will need ye to help me with removing the weapon from Kagome's shoulder," Kaede said as she went back over to the others. "Lay her down right here, InuYasha," she ordered gently, pointing to the bedding she had beside the fire. InuYasha nodded and gently laid Kagome upon the soft futon.

"If you don't make her better, babaa," InuYasha growled, "I swear I'll-"

"InuYasha, I have been listening to your threats for long enough to not feel threatened by them anymore," Kaede said smoothly. InuYasha flushed angrily, but kept his mouth shut.

"Excuse me?" Gaka came forward now, the large scroll of Amaterasu clasped in his arms. "Can I ask something?"

Kaede, who was about to start removing the javelin, paused and turned to Gaka. "Who are you?"

"My name is Gaka, and I am a wandering artist. I was wondering if I might hang something in here to help with your surgery."

Kaede raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "If that makes ye feel better," she said.

Gaka nodded, and found a place on the wall to hang his scroll. Amaterasu emerged in her full glory, glowing with the same aura that had surrounded her in the castle and in the later battlefield. Here it filled everyone with peace and contentment, as if they knew that everything was going to be all right.

"Sango, it is time for us to begin," Kaede said. If she was unnerved by the painting, she didn't show it. Sango nodded and held Kagome's head and shoulders in a firm grasp. Kaede took the knife, sterilized it with some of the cleanser Kagome had given her, and made two small, but deep cuts on either side of the javelin's haft.

InuYasha smelled the blood and panicked. "Babaa, what the hell are you-"

"I am only making the wound a little wider so that it is easier to get the weapon out, InuYasha," Kaede said as she put the knife down on the cloth it had been wrapped in. "It is better than having the flesh torn when we pull it out." Kaede fixed her eye on Sango, who nodded. Then she turned to Miroku and flashed her eye from him to InuYasha and back again. Miroku nodded: message received.

Kaede took as firm a grip as she could on the javelin's haft and began to slowly pull it out. Kagome gave a whimper and moved slightly. Sango's firm grip on her shoulders prevented the operation site from moving, though, and Kaede continued to pull the javelin out.

"Stop...it hurts...stop..." Kagome murmured, her eyes rolling restlessly underneath her eyelids as her lower body continued to shift around. Sweat was beading on her forehead as her movements became more agitated.

As Kagome's agitation grew, so did InuYasha's, who was now up and pacing about, a small growl starting in his throat. "Hurry up, babaa," he snarled as Kagome gave another whimper.

"Patience, InuYasha. If we rush this, we will cause more harm than good," Kaede replied.

After fifteen minutes of work, it looked like the javelin had only moved an inch or so, and Kagome was beginning to cry out more as convulsions seized her body. Another growl ripped itself out of InuYasha's throat. Kaede looked at Miroku and gave him a small nod. "InuYasha, we should go outside," the houshi said. "There's nothing we can do here, we're only-"

"Fuck off, houshi!" InuYasha snapped, fangs flashing and ears flattened. "I ain't goin' nowhere!"

Miroku sighed, as if he thought that was what InuYasha was going to say. "Then you leave me no choice. I apologize in advance."

"Apologize fo-"

A sharp pain exploded in InuYasha's head as Shakujou slammed down, right between the hanyou's fuzzy ears. InuYasha fell to the ground, thoroughly out for the count. "We shall leave you to it, then," Gaka said as he helped Miroku drag the incapacitated hanyou out of the hut, followed closely by Shippou and Kirara.

From then on, Amaterasu was the only witness to the grueling scene in the hut, as the two women struggled to first remove the javelin, then stitch up the wound in Kagome's shoulder. But at last, when the moon was starting to ride high in the sky, the deed was done. Kagome was sleeping peacefully, and the javelin was glinting maliciously from its position on the knife's cloth, still dripping warm blood onto the not-so pristine white fabric.

"Kagome-chan will need a lot of rest to heal this wound," Sango said quietly as she cleaned her hands off. "I'm glad that we managed to get that javelin out, though."

Kaede nodded. She looked years older than she actually was, she was so tired from the concentration it had taken to safely remove the javelin. "Aye. Now we must prepare ourselves for when InuYasha returns; he can't touch her, and I know he will want to."

Sango grumbled something that sounded vaguely like, "More like pound Houshi-sama, Gaka and Shippou into the ground."

* * *

The world slowly came back into agonizing focus as InuYasha regained consciousness, groaning slightly as the pain in his head made itself known. "Fuckin' hell," he grumbled as he rolled over onto his stomach and rose slowly to his knees, clutching his head with both hands and gingerly touching the throbbing lump between his ears.

"Nice to see you again, my friend," a familiar voice said. The pain on his head increased with the sound of the voice.

InuYasha winced and muttered, "Not so fuckin' loud, you're killin' me."

Miroku's face swam into focus, his amethyst eyes wary. For a few seconds, InuYasha wondered what the houshi did to get that look of wariness in his eyes. Then he remembered that when he had been hit, the blow had been accompanied by jingling. The same kind of jingling that Shakujou made.

"Why in the fucking hell did you fucking hit me?" InuYasha snapped, his anger overriding the pain, as it usually did. "What the hell did _I _do?"

"It wasn't about what you _did, _it was about what you were _going _to do. It was clear from the start that you would object to Kagome-sama being in so much pain, and if necessary, you would attack to protect her, which might put her in an even worse state. So I removed you before you could cause any damage," Miroku explained. The explanation made sense, but it didn't make InuYasha feel any better.

Then something popped to the forefront of his mind, something that he would've remembered if he hadn't been angry at Miroku. "Is...is Kagome all right? Did they get that javelin out of her?" he asked anxiously. If Kagome had died...

Miroku gave him a kind smile as his eyes flashed with a familiar insolence. "Kaede-sama isn't an amateur, InuYasha. Kagome is fine; she just needs to sleep and nature will take care of the rest."

InuYasha let out a long breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. _'She's all right...' _Then something else came to him. He and Miroku were sitting out in the dark wilderness by themselves. Where were the others? "Where is everyone?" InuYasha asked incredulously. Had they dumped him out here and gone back to the hut?

As if sensing InuYasha's anger, Miroku quickly stated, "I have stayed out here with you. Shippou and Kirara returned to Sango when she told them that the surgery was finished. Gaka is at the Goshinboku. He said he needed some time by himself to paint. I have given him some ofuda to protect himself," he added when InuYasha opened his mouth to remind Miroku of why Gaka was with them in the first place.

InuYasha just gave a "Feh" and headed out into the night. With a small sigh, Miroku rose from where he was sitting and left for Kaede's hut, ready for a good night's sleep.

* * *

The wind rustled in the leaves as the breeze sighed through the land. The Goshinboku stood, taller and prouder than any of the other trees in the forest, its wide canopy shielding the land below it from the dark night above. Sitting just outside the shadow of the Goshinboku was Gaka, who was painting with the shikon-no-kakera concoction of his again, his brush moving across parchment to bring his characters to life. The artist didn't know why, but something about the Goshinboku had called him there, drawn him in with whispers of times long since gone. Being of the inquisitive type, Gaka asked for permission to leave from Miroku, who had said yes as long as Gaka kept his ofuda on his person at all times so he could erect a barrier around himself and stave off any youkai who might seek his life.

Honestly, Gaka wouldn't have noticed if a youkai had tapped him on the shoulder, so engrossed was he in the Goshinboku's energy flow. It was like the tree was speaking directly to his inner eye and opening up millions upon billions of opportunities. The clearest picture that had formed in his mind was none other than the hanyou InuYasha, his eyes closed as if in sleep, his back resting against the Goshinboku's trunk, his chest impaled with an arrow and his body bound with roots as the Goshinboku embraced him during a half-century's repose. The image had repeated itself over and over and over until Gaka finally took parchment and ink and started painting the scene in his head, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated on getting the details just right. The sky would be dark and starry, like it was tonight. The viewer would just see the trunk of the Goshinboku and the hanyou who had rested upon it, not the grass or any other distracting details. The trunk would be a mixture of brown and cream. As for InuYasha; well, Gaka knew what he looked like. The only difficult thing might be replicating the peaceful look on his face as he slept through the decades. _'Ah, well,' _Gaka thought happily as his brush rasped against the parchment, _'I do like a challenge. When one has had as little inspiration as I have had these past few years, one seizes an opportunity like this with both hands.'_

Gaka was soon so engrossed in his painting that he didn't notice when something came up behind him, stalking him in the night. Fangs glistening as a branch cracked beneath the steady advance of feet. Then, a near-silent _whoosh _as whatever it was leaped high into the night, blotting out the moonlight as it sought out its prey...

InuYasha landed right next to Gaka, who didn't even notice him, buried as he was in his newest painting. _'Baka,' _the hanyou thought, shaking his head. _'I knew it was a bad idea to leave him out here on his own. What that houshi was thinking...damned if I know.' _InuYasha reached out and tapped Gaka on the shoulder. Gaka still didn't look up. "OI!" InuYasha bellowed, annoyed at being ignored.

Gaka started, nearly making his ink-pot fall over as he looked around for the source of the noise. Upon seeing InuYasha, Gaka let out a long sigh. "Thank goodness...I thought you were a youkai."

InuYasha snorted. "Trust me, if I was a youkai, you'd be dead. Y'know, most people have enough common sense not to go wandering in the woods alone. You, however..." InuYasha trailed off and just shook his head scornfully.

Gaka just laughed. "I have always been more adventurous than most. Curious, too, especially about this tree." Gaka jerked his thumb towards the Goshinboku. "Very powerful, and filled to the brim with hundreds of years worth of history. I can give this history a voice, or rather, a picture." Gaka sighed again and looked at the tree, an almost reverent expression on his face. "I could sit out here for ten years and never get one half of its stories down on paper."

"I think that's a good thing," InuYasha said neutrally. Some things were best left buried. Gaka raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Instead, he began painting again. InuYasha craned his neck to see what Gaka was painting. "Oi," he said, "Can I see what you're doing?"

Gaka turned to him, a small smirk on his face. "I thought some things were best left buried, InuYasha." InuYasha went bright red and stalked away, muttering something like, "Stupid artist. Hope he has the sense to get to safety before some youkai devours him."

Gaka chuckled and wrapped up his parchment. If the others would allow it, he would continue his painting back in the old miko's hut. After all, he could still see the picture in his head; putting it on parchment would be child's play.

As Gaka gathered up his things, a cold shiver ran down his neck. He cast his gaze around warily, looking for whatever had caused him to feel this way. When nothing presented itself, Gaka shrugged and went on his way, unaware of the ugly wasp that lifted itself from a nearby tree and buzzed off into the night.

The Saimyoushou had much to report to its master...


	8. Recovery and Inside Information

Morning came as a vast relief to everyone, the sun's rays warming the world as it peeked over the Eastern horizon. InuYasha wanted to visit Kagome as soon as the sun was up, but Miroku and Sango managed to convince him that it would be better to wait until later; Kagome was sleeping, and she healed faster when she was sleeping.

InuYasha managed to curb his impatience until an hour after the sun had risen, then he charged into Kaede's hut. Kagome was sitting up, her back against the wall as she fed herself some stew with one hand, the injured arm lying uselessly beside her. Kaede was busy stirring the rest of the stew around in the pot, her back to InuYasha as she concentrated on keeping breakfast from boiling over. The painting of Amaterasu looked out over them all, her familiar face shining like the sunlight that made up her background. To the hanyou's surprise, Gaka was also there; painting, for a change.

Kagome looked up from her breakfast and smiled tiredly at him. "Morning, InuYasha."

InuYasha sat down next to her, trying to hide his concern behind a mask of indifference. "You okay?" he asked gruffly.

Kagome gave a half-shrug; her injured shoulder being the half that didn't move. "I've been worse," she said. "It isn't as bad as that time I was cursed, and then there was that time that I was poisoned. All in all, this is nothing." During her little speech, Kagome had unconsciously lifted her injured arm to brush some hair behind her ear, wincing when the movement jarred her stitches, which made her argument a little shaky.

"As long as you're feeling better, I guess that's okay," InuYasha said, which was only partially true. It was not okay that Kagome had gotten wounded, but she would get better, and that made the situation almost neutral. Still, InuYasha vowed to himself that it wouldn't happen again.

"So you actually took my advice and came back to a safe place, then, huh?" InuYasha said, addressing Gaka now. Once again, Gaka was engrossed in his painting and didn't look up when InuYasha spoke to him. "Dammit, what's his problem?" InuYasha grumbled.

"He's been like that all morning," Kagome whispered as she offered him the refilled bowl of stew she'd just gotten from Kaede. "Kaede said he came in late last night and was up when she got up. He's been painting for _hours._"

InuYasha just gave a "Feh," as he glared sideways at Gaka. He didn't understand what all the fuss was about paints and pictures and what-have-you. Well, as long as it kept Gaka away from Kagome, InuYasha supposed he shouldn't complain. (He and Miroku both had yet to learn that Gaka was asexual and not interested in love or sex of any kind.)

Kaede came over to the couple and sat down with a small grunt as her aged bones creaked slightly. "I suspect that the artist over there has some sort of foresight; he is able to see things that we ordinary mortals cannot."

"I think Gaka called it 'his inner eye,'" Kagome said. InuYasha snorted.

"It goes much farther than that. I think, if the spiritual energy in the area is strong enough, young Gaka can see the past and possibly even the future. It is a gift given to precious few." Kaede looked at Gaka with a small frown on her wrinkled face. "Normally, it takes many years of training to gain even half of the insight he apparently has."

"Can it be triggered by a traumatic event?" Kagome asked.

Kaede's brow furrowed as she thought back to the long years of miko-training she'd had when Kikyou had died. "Perhaps," she eventually replied. "Was there something particularly terrible that happened in his life?"

Kagome looked over at Gaka. The artist was intently focused on his newest painting, his brow furrowed and his black eyes intense, the shadow of pain lying just beyond his artistic obsession. "When he was little, the Shichinintai massacred his entire village. He was the only survivor."

Kaede nodded and also fixed Gaka with a pitying eye. "Poor child. I wonder if he is entirely stable, after all that has happened to him."

"He has his moments," InuYasha grumbled.

Kagome giggled. "At least he doesn't run around naked and covered in blue paint, shouting about the Kami and football."

Both Kaede and InuYasha stared at Kagome like she had just uttered a nasty swear-word. "Do people _do_ that in your world?" InuYasha asked incredulously.

* * *

It was unanimously agreed upon that Kagome should stay in the village while she recovered from the javelin wound. Since InuYasha usually became really cranky if Kagome wasn't traveling with them, it was also agreed that the others should stay behind, too.

The one who seemed the most pleased about this idea was Gaka, who would spend hours at a time by the Goshinboku, sketching, painting, and generally getting his 'insights' down on paper. Most of them had to do with InuYasha, Kikyou and Kagome, since they'd had the most emotional trauma near the tree in question.

The days quickly began to fly by, and it was strangely quiet for the Sengoku jidai. "I don't like this," InuYasha growled, seven full days after Kagome had started to recover. "It's too quiet. There hasn't been one fuckin' youkai in _days. _Something's up. I can _smell _it."

"I, for one, think that you're reading too much into what happens to be a peaceful summer week," Miroku had replied, not even opening his eyes as he 'meditated.'

_'Feh,' _InuYasha thought as he glared at the houshi, _'probably meditating about naked girls, that hentai...'_

* * *

The wind whistled through the trees, far, far to the West of Kaede's village. The daiyoukai stopped his forward motion and looked up, scenting the wind as it wailed through the leaves.

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jyaken arrived at Sesshoumaru's ankle, huffing and puffing as he tried to appear on top of things. "Is something the matter, my lord?" he asked, clutching his double-headed staff for support.

"It is his scent," Sesshoumaru stated simply, then turned towards the human girl sitting on Ah-Un, his two headed dragon. "Rin."

The girl looked up, smiling at her lord. "Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama?" she asked politely.

"I want you to take Ah-Un and leave this place," he ordered. Even though his voice never changed its tone, the command was clear enough for Rin to understand.

"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama!" she chirped obediently, then tugged on Ah-Un's reins. In the space of a few seconds, the two of them were high in the sky.

Jyaken watched them go, then turned back to his lord, his bulbous eyes slightly fearful. "Sesshoumaru-sama?" he asked as Sesshoumaru stood motionless, waiting for the person he had scented and ignoring everything else around him.

The wind grew into a tumult, the tree-branches whipping in the wind as the scent grew even stronger. Then the daiyoukai saw her drop from the sky and land on the ground as the wind died down into calm background noise. "Kagura," he greeted without a shred of emotion in his voice.

Naraku's female incarnation didn't have her normal look of calm confidence about her. Instead, she seemed unusually urgent. "Sesshoumaru, I need to tell you something," she said, her red eyes almost frantic.

"Is it about Naraku?" he asked, although he had already guessed the answer.

"Yes," she replied. She had her wind-fan clutched to her chest, as though the hole where her heart was supposed to be was paining her, which, since Naraku possessed her heart, it probably was. "I don't have much time," she told him, her legs wobbling as she tried to remain steady. She took a deep breath and began. "Naraku...is making his move. He's already killed his child-servant, Kohaku, to get the shikon-no-kakera from his neck. Now he's either going to attack InuYasha's group to get the shard they have and then attack Kouga, or he's going to somehow lure them all to the same location and take all the shards." Kagura winced and wobbled again. "I...I don't know what he's planning, but if he gets those shards, the Shikon-no-Tama will be complete, and I...I will _never _be free of him!" Kagura's face twisted into a disgusted scowl as she spoke. _'I am the wind, and no hellish spider is going to keep me bound to this Earth!'_

"Why do you tell me this?" Sesshoumaru asked with only the slightest of slight interest.

Kagura looked at him, her face still as proud as ever it was. "I know that if you were to join the fight against him when he makes his move, then you would tip the odds in your favor. If Naraku wins, he will drive anyone who dares to defy him into the ground and leave them in his wake. This world will be nothing more than an empty shell." Kagura's free fist clenched as she gritted her teeth against the pain of her rapidly throbbing chest. "I don't want to be condemned to a life of Hell, and neither should you."

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "I have already vowed to destroy that wretched hanyou for thinking of me as nothing but a pawn in his little games. Regardless of whether or not he has become more powerful, I will not stop until I kill him." With that, Sesshoumaru turned his back on Kagura, not stopping when he said, "Get back to Naraku. Do not tell him what you have told me."

Kagura held out a hand, as if she wanted to stop Sesshoumaru, then seemed to think better of it and turned away. The wind-witch's voice was barely audible when she murmured, "Be careful."

The only response the daiyoukai made was a small "Hn."


	9. The Calm Before the Storm

The day finally came when Kagome was ready to take the bandages off her arm, the stitches having come off about a week earlier. It was a day Kagome was _really _looking forward to, since it would mean the end of sitting around reading the same books over and over again with one hand, and the end of eating with one hand while a certain person tried not to laugh, or ignored her when she proved to be useless for too long a period of time. "It will still be a little stiff, but the pain will be gone," Kaede told her as she unwound the bandage from around Kagome's shoulder. There was still a little red frown on her shoulder where the javelin had hit, but there was nothing anyone could do about it (save for the plastic surgery profession in the Heisei jidai, but Kagome thought she'd had enough of surgery to last her for a while).

To celebrate her new-found freedom, Kagome decided to take a walk over to the Goshinboku _alone, _something she had not done when she'd had the stitches. _'Not that I don't like it when InuYasha carries me,' _she thought to herself as she wound her way slowly through the trees, _'but sometimes I need to be alone.' _The Goshinboku slowly came into view, and to Kagome's relief there was nobody present at the ancient tree's trunk. Kagome carefully made her way over the twisted and knobbly roots as she headed towards the long scar on the trunk of Goshinboku; the evidence of InuYasha's fifty-year seal to the tree. When she reached it, Kagome slowly traced the edge of the jagged mark before running her fingers over the center and probing the small indentation where the arrow had pierced the inu-hanyou's chest and bound him to the tree.

_'Even after seeing him 'asleep' and breaking his seal, I still can't imagine what being sealed was like for InuYasha,' _she thought gloomily as she placed her forehead on the tree's trunk, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, letting the soothing scent of the Goshinboku wash over her senses. Was she imagining it, or was there a little bit of InuYasha's scent mixed in with the tree's? _'I might just be imagining it. That DOES happen when one happens to be completely obsessed with the person in question,' _Kagome sighed to herself.

She had no idea when she had started feeling this strongly for InuYasha; all she knew was that she had been under this very tree, back in her time, when she'd realized that the feelings she had about the situation with InuYasha and Kikyou meant she had fallen head over heels in love with the wonderfully brave and rather dashing inu-hanyou. _'Not that he feels the same,' _Kagome thought as she looked up into the branches of the gigantic tree. It was true that InuYasha felt..._something _for her. After all, he did try to keep her safe and...well, maybe not _happy_, but content. If he felt anything besides friendship towards her, though, the hanyou didn't show it.

Kagome tried not to let the tears rise as she thought of all the times InuYasha had run off after Kikyou's scent without so much as a goodbye or a sorry. The reincarnated miko had even tried to _kill _him on several occasions, and he _still _followed after her like a lost puppy! With a small shake of her head, the miko took a deep breath and willed the anger inside of herself to dissipate. It wasn't fair to say that about InuYasha and Kikyou. Experience with one of Naraku's incarnations had taught her that she couldn't let the darkness in her heart rule her life; it wasn't fair, it wasn't right and it made InuYasha...happy, she supposed.

_'Doesn't mean I have to __**like **__it,' _she thought gloomily as she rested her head against the tree once more. One stubborn tear managed to escape the confines of her eyelids and trailed down her face to disappear amongst the aged bark of the Goshinboku. Her hand traced up her torso to clutch at her pounding heart, which seemed to pump poison through her veins with every beat.

InuYasha had been nice and sociable when she was injured, but once she started really recovering, he hadn't been visiting as much as he had been earlier. Maybe he had seen that she wasn't going to die and decided that he no longer cared about her injury.

Maybe he just didn't care, period.

Kagome's eyes filled with bright tears that started to fall down her face, one by one. _'And to think that this was such a good day earlier...'_

* * *

Back in the village, InuYasha was practicing with his Tetsusaiga (not that he needed to practice, but it got his mind off...other things), Miroku was 'meditating' again and Sango was also practicing, mainly as a turnoff to a hopeful houshi. Shippou was busy displaying some of his pictures to an interested Gaka, who praised the kitsune's 'strange art tools' and his own inner eye.

"Gaka-san," Sango asked as she wiped the perspiration from her brow, "Have you seen Kagome-chan around? I know she got her bandages off earlier, but I haven't seen her since." The interest between the group members sharpened palpably. Miroku cracked open one amethyst eye, Shippou stopped chattering about his drawings, and even InuYasha flicked his right ear back in their general direction.

Gaka suddenly became very interested in Shippou's picture of a battle-scene between him and Naraku, in which the girls were cheering him on and the boys were blundering around with stupid looks on their faces. "The last I saw of her was when I witnessed her weeping by the Goshinboku," he confessed, with a tone of voice that suggested that he was talking about the weather.

Every person stopped what they doing and practically screamed, "WHAT?" Gaka looked at the ground beneath his feet, playing with some of the blades of grass that grew beneath his bare toes, trying to keep his eyes away from the accusatory stares around him.

The first person who recovered from what Gaka had said was the kitsune, and he promptly pursued this revelation. "Why is Kagome crying, Gaka?" Shippou asked. "Is she sad?"

"I believe she was. I went over there to paint and saw her sitting amongst the roots. She held one hand over her eyes and the other over her heart, like something inside of her was tearing her apart. Poor thing," Gaka sighed, ignoring his now rapt audience. "Maybe she was saddened by the fact that _most _of you were not at the hut to congratulate her on her successful recovery, or the fact that a certain one of you stopped visiting her some time ago." Gaka glared around at the group, his intense black gaze lingering on InuYasha, who returned the glare.

"Just tell her to get off of her fuckin' high horse and come back to reality," he growled, turning away. "Some of us _do _have other things to do besides visit a sick friend twenty four seven."

Miroku, Sango, Shippou and even Kirara, who had been sleeping in the grass, now watched the exchange between artist and hanyou. It was starting to become like one of Kagome and InuYasha's arguments, which was rather like watching two people playing tennis with a firebomb: you never knew who would have the ball when it blew up.

"That never bothered you before, InuYasha," Gaka replied, his face still calm, although his eyes were seething black pools of anger. "You were by her side every night while she was still in pain."

InuYasha chose this moment to interject one of Kagome's favorite phrases. "Well, that was _then _and this is _now,_" he snarled, feeling his hackles rise at the almost challenging note in Gaka's voice.

"I cannot believe how _dense _you are," Gaka retorted, his face becoming hard. "Some people would give up everything they own to get what you have."

InuYasha's golden eyes narrowed. "I have no fuckin' idea what you mean."

As one, the spectators took in a breath. The deadly game was becoming more serious. Was Gaka seriously about to point out what the rest of them had known for months?

Gaka rose swiftly, drawing himself up to his full height as he glared at the hanyou standing across from him, his spiky black hair standing up all over his head as the sunlight hit his eyes and gave them a distinctly red tint. At that moment, Gaka reminded Sango of a particular type of youkai called a yama'arashi, a porcupine-like creature whose quills were creatures capable of independent thought. He certainly seemed as fierce as one of those beasts. "I am referring to the fact that you have been given a second chance at life," Gaka thundered, and even though he was not a tall man, he suddenly seemed to fill the sky, his black eyes blazing like twin pits of flaming oil. "You have good friends, _two _places to consider home, and a woman who loves you with all of her heart and soul. Yet you would waste this! You would throw all of that away to cling to a long dead past and a woman who only loved you because you presented her with an opportunity to escape the clutches of a future that she loathed."

InuYasha stiffened, a real growl leaving his throat as his eyes blazed red, despite the katana that was sheathed at his side. "You-you think you can stay with us for a few days and _think _you know everything about me?" he barked. "Think again!" Thinking that statement would wrap up the argument, InuYasha turned tail and began stalking into the forest.

"I am not done talking to you, you thick-headed dog," Gaka declared.

The spectators groaned. It seemed that Gaka was about to be blown up, regardless of the great speech he had made earlier.

InuYasha stopped in his tracks and turned around, his eyes positively livid. "What?" The hanyou's voice was dangerously neutral.

"I am not going to say anything about Kikyou. That is the past, and I know more than anyone that sometimes the past is better off buried. This is about the future, and the young lady who is crying right now." No-one really knew if Gaka knew what he was saying, but they had no doubt that the artist had just struck the proverbial bull's-eye.

The anger was briefly wiped from InuYasha's face as shock flashed across his golden eyes. Then the ire swiftly returned, darkening his eyes and pulling his mouth down into a fierce scowl. "You know nothin' about me, you know nothin' about Kikyou, and you sure as hell know nothin' about Kagome," he growled. "Stop talkin' before I rip your throat out."

Gaka's eyes suddenly became very sad. "Can I just say one last thing?"

InuYasha considered, then turned his back with a huff. "Spit it out, then."

Gaka took a deep breath and played his last trump card. "If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest, you are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her, _mark my words_." With that, Gaka turned away and began walking towards the Goshinboku.

InuYasha, caught completely off-guard by Gaka's dark delivery, whipped about to see the artist's retreating figure. "Wait!" he yelled. "What the hell d'you mean by that?"

"I am afraid I cannot tell you!" Gaka shouted back. "You said that I could only say one more thing before you ripped my throat out, and I rather like my throat!"

The spectators blinked in astonishment as Gaka slowly sauntered away. Against all odds, Gaka had managed to juggle the firebomb and delivered it back to InuYasha before it exploded, leaving the hanyou in the dust. InuYasha gaped at the artist's rapidly diminishing back before he seemed to come to his senses and chase after him, shouting, "What the fuck-get back here, you bastard! Get back here and explain what you meant!"

Gaka continued his slow retreat, weaving in and out of the villagers as he headed towards the tree that had demanded his attention ever since he had arrived at the village. Something in his soul told him that Kagome would still be there, still crying like there was no tomorrow. _'No tomorrow,' _Gaka thought sadly as he looked up at the bright blue sky. He had been painting like he had no tomorrow, like each and every painting he produced would be his last. Not only that, but his 'insight' had been showing him the third picture of his triptych more and more often. It was always that one picture of the hanyou who was currently pursuing them, kneeling on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes as he cradled the young miko's broken body in his arms. _'I do not think that tomorrow holds much promise for you or for I, my lady,' _Gaka thought as he stared at the sky.

His Amaterasu's aura was fading. Gaka had noticed it when he had walked into the hut this morning to get a few mouth-fulls of broth for breakfast. Her aura had been weaker, and her radiance didn't touch as much of the hut as it used to. Gaka knew that Amaterasu's aura only weakened when darkness descended upon the Earth.

And darkness did indeed seem to be descending upon the Earth.

* * *

Kagome's tears finally dried up about midday, nearly four hours after she started crying. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she felt a little bit better. Crying tended to do that to a person. Maybe her situation wasn't any better, but at least she'd had the chance to release some of her pent-up emotions.

The miko was about to return to the village when she heard a commotion in the woods. It sounded like someone was being chased through the forest. Kagome reached for her bow and arrows-which weren't there. _'Fine time to forget your weapons,' _Kagome mentally chided herself. The rustling/pounding sound grew closer and closer, and Kagome readied herself to fight however she could, resolved to try her best until the very end.

To her surprise, Gaka burst through the bushes at one end of the clearing, smiling like he was on a fairground ride rather than being chased through a forest. The pursuing animal grew closer, finally bursting through the trees and revealing itself to be-

_'InuYasha?' _Kagome goggled at the two men, her mind temporarily overcome with shock. _'What in the name of the Kami is going on here?'_

Gaka stopped running when he reached the middle of the clearing. Wheeling about, the artist said in a falsely resigned voice, "All right, InuYasha. You win. I cannot run anymore."

InuYasha smirked at the artist, his golden eyes flashing as he shamelessly bragged. "Did you honestly think that a puny human like _you _could outrun _me? _I could outrun each and every one of you humans if one of my legs was broken! I don't see why you came here...in...in the..." InuYasha's speech trailed off after his eyes roved over the Goshinboku and came to rest on Kagome, who was looking a little affronted.

"And therein lies the crux of my plan," Gaka admitted. "I knew you could not resist a verbal lure, and I also knew that this young lady badly needed some company. By the way," he added as InuYasha opened his mouth to argue, "I have it on good authority that a certain houshi and taijiya will personally, as you so crudely put it, 'beat the shit out of you' if you run away from here." Gaka turned on his heel and walked away, a small, sad smile on his face as he looked towards the heavens and the bright sun that shone down from above. _'Please, __Ōkami Amaterasu,' _he pleaded silently to the glowing orb, _'Please let us mortals have this one day of peace and quiet. Just this one day.'_

Meanwhile, back at the tree, an awkward silence had fallen over Goshinboku's clearing, as both hanyou and miko looked at anything and everything that didn't happen to be the other person. The birds chirruped in the trees, and small animals chattered to themselves as they gathered food or burrowed holes. The natural sounds of the forest seemed to be a thousand times louder than they usually were as the silence between the two of them thickened to the consistency of old gravy.

InuYasha tried hard to ignore the overwhelming scent of tears and sadness that Kagome was practically radiating, but the scent was so fresh and permeated much of the air, and it wasn't his fault that he was already in tune to the woman's sweet smell. With every breath he took, the scent rushed at him and burned his throat over and over again. Not only that, but it seemed to be getting _fresher, _not staler. But that would mean-

_'Oh shit!' _InuYasha's eyes inadvertently whipped over to Kagome, who had large pearly tears trailing down both cheeks. InuYasha became frantic, both wanting to stop the tears and not knowing how to do it, which was pretty much how he always felt when Kagome started crying. "Uh...please don't cry, Kagome!" InuYasha yelled frantically, charging over to her and waving his arms about like a particularly ineffectual windmill. "I...I...whatever I did, I didn't mean it!" InuYasha winced as the words left his mouth. It was a far cry from comforting, but he didn't know what else to say.

Apparently, he had said the wrong thing. Kagome took a deep breath and suddenly burst into wild sobs as she collapsed to the ground. Completely terrified now, the hanyou found himself reaching out to give Kagome a small, almost timid pat, as if he was afraid (and rightly so) that Kagome was about to 'osuwari' him so many times that he would be able to see Hell without dying.

Kagome blindly launched herself at him when she felt the pat, sinking her face into his red-clad chest and wailing like the world was ending. _'Oooooookay...' _Slowly, InuYasha reached down and put his hands on Kagome's back. "Are...are you gonna tell me why you're cryin'?" he asked warily. His instincts were telling him that he really didn't want to know. Which was just as well, since Kagome shook her head vehemently no. "You sure?" Nod. InuYasha shrugged, and contented himself with holding Kagome until her second bout of tears dried out.

It was actually rather nice; sitting under the Goshinboku with Kagome in his arms, the wind whispering around them as the forest's inhabitants continued their busy lives while the two of them sat utterly still. Like so many other times when he was with Kagome, InuYasha felt like he was totally at peace.

Eventually, Kagome's sobs became hiccups, and the hiccups slowly faded into silent tears. "Sorry," she finally mumbled. "I didn't...didn't mean to start crying like that again."

InuYasha shrugged, relieved to see that the tears had stopped. "Why were you crying in the first place?" he asked, slightly curious. Kagome's bottom lip trembled as her swollen eyelids drifted over her bloodshot eyes, trying to conceal the wetness behind them. "Shit, no, I mean, don't cry!" InuYasha blurted, shocked at the appearance of yet more tears. "If...if y'don't wanna tell me, just say so! Dammit, don't cry, Kagome!"

Kagome sniffed, but managed to hold her tears back. "Sorry," she said again, her voice thick with the tears she had suppressed. "I guess I must seem like a big crybaby to you right now."

InuYasha opted to just shrug again. It was true that Kagome was more emotional than any woman he'd ever met, but telling her that might make her start crying again, and InuYasha didn't think he could handle a second bout of tears. Kagome buried her face in his sopping wet haori and sniffed again, relaxing into his chest and the warmth that the hanyou naturally exuded. InuYasha felt himself going red as Kagome snuggled closer and closer to him, curling up to his chest like a sleepy kitten might curl up to its mother. "Uh...Kagome, what are you doing?" he asked, ashamed to realize that his voice had risen an octave above its normal tone.

"You're warm, and I'm cold," she replied, her own voice muffled by his chest.

"I thought you were upset at me, though," he said cautiously. No need to wake sleeping youkai, after all...

"I was."

"Then...?"

"I decided to forget being upset for a while. My eyes hurt and I'm tired."

Well, seeing as the result could have been a lot worse than Kagome saying she was tired made InuYasha feel a lot better than he had been feeling a few minutes previously. After looking left and right to make sure the hentai houshi wasn't anywhere nearby, InuYasha carefully wrapped Kagome up in his wide haori sleeves, protecting her from any and all harm that might seek her way. _'Throwing away the future, my ass,' _InuYasha silently gloated as Kagome fell asleep, her chest rising and falling underneath his arms.

The thought brought to mind what Gaka had said before InuYasha had chased him towards the Goshinboku. _"__If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest, you are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her, mark my words." _

_'What the hell does that even mean?' _InuYasha thought bitterly as Kagome shifted against his chest, mumbling something in her sleep and weaving her fingers into his haori like a child would with a favorite blanket. _'I only regret some of the things I said to Kagome, not __**all **__of them! He's acting like she might DIE soon!'_

Even though the thought was meant to be sarcastic, it sent a shudder down the hanyou's back, and he unconsciously clutched Kagome closer to his chest. _'Damn...I don't want that to happen,' _he thought as the shudders continued to race up and down his spine at the unpleasant train of thought that his mind had currently taken. _'It won't happen,' _he reassured himself as Kagome tried to roll over in her sleep, grumbling slightly when InuYasha's arms prevented her from doing so. _'I'll always protect you, Kagome. I don't care what anyone says about you or me, I ain't gonna waste whatever future's in store for us any more!'_

It wasn't too long after that last thought when the gentle summer sunlight and the tranquility of the forest (not to mention the soothing sent of the woman in his arms) compelled the hanyou's eyes to drift shut as he fell asleep as well. It seemed that, for the time being, Gaka's fervent prayer had been answered. Tomorrow might bring darkness, but this day would be filled with much-needed peace and tranquility.

It wouldn't last forever, but it was much appreciated by everyone who lived in the forest by the cursed well.

* * *

_A/N: The next chapter is probably going to be late, mostly because I'll be stressing the right part of my brain to the utmost to make the next chapter totally epic._

_Hope y'all can wait that long...  
_


	10. Doomsday

The day was almost normal. The birds were singing in the trees, which whispered in a soft breeze as the sun shone down from on high. An azure sky stretched from horizon to horizon with barely a cloud to disturb its great face. There was nothing to suggest that something was coming, that today would be the day that everything changed. It was almost _too_normal.

The first sign that something was wrong were the long white bodies of the shinidamachuu twisting and weaving through the trees, some grasping dead souls in their spindly legs, the others scouting for news. Kikyou was sitting in the fork of a long-dead tree, shinidamachuu surrounding her body and bringing her the dead souls that were her sustenance while the others searched for signs of Naraku. The tree and the surrounding area was glowing, the lights of the deceased spirits shining like hundreds of tiny spotlights. The undead miko's eyes were closed as she absorbed soul after soul, trying to conserve what strength she could get from the dead souls.

One shinidamachuu in particular wove its way through its brethren and perched on Kikyou's shoulder. The miko didn't open her eyes as the shinidamachuu gently gripped her shoulder with its fragile legs, its red eyes intent as it relayed what it had seen to its undead mistress. "I see," she finally said, and the ghostly youkai floated off of her shoulder and back to its fellows, twisting and undulating about her as they continued to deposit souls into her body. "So Naraku has made his move."

Kikyou opened her eyes and lifted one pale hand into the air. The shinidamachuu immediately wove themselves into a living harness and lifted her gently from the tree to deposit her on the ground. Kikyou shifted her arrows onto her back and hefted her longbow, ready for the long journey that would take her to the village where she had once served as miko. The reason she was heading over there was because her shinidamachuu had witnessed Naraku's entourage heading in that general direction, spreading shouki and murderous youkai all over Nippon as he did so. It was as if Naraku no longer cared about hiding, which could only mean that he thought he had the upper hand in strength. Many villages had fallen across Naraku's path, and the shinidamachuu had told her that they were completely decimated, skeletons and withered buildings the only evidence that people had once been there. At the rate he was traveling, Naraku would make it to his destination in only a few hours, by next morning at the latest.

_'Naraku, your evil has gone on for far too long,' _the undead miko thought as the shinidamachuu lifted her once more and began flying in the direction of her one-time home. _'I will personally be there to escort you to Hell. Then I will be free to return to my eternal rest once more.' _As she flew through the night air, Kikyou looked up at the heavens above, her eyes thoughtful, although her face remained dismally neutral.

_'InuYasha...'_

* * *

Meanwhile, two ōkami youkai were running slowly across the landscape of the Sengoku jidai, panting and wheezing as their wolves tailed behind them, all of them panting along with their masters. All of them were following a large whirlwind, which moved far faster than any of them. "KOUGA!" Hakkaku and Ginta shouted in unison, sweat trickling down their faces as they continued to run. "Why are we running so fast?"

Kouga didn't answer; he just kept on running, his whirlwind hot on his heels as he rushed through the meadows like a lightning bolt. Earlier that day, he had caught a whiff of Naraku's scent, and without further ado had stopped hunting food and started hunting his arch-nemesis. _'Time to avenge my pack once and for all!' _he thought bitterly as the land flew beneath his feet.

Not only that, Naraku's scent was heading in the direction of the village where Kagome and that dog-breathed mongrel InuYasha called home, and Kouga would be forever damned to _hell _if he let Naraku kill his intended woman. The ōkami prince pushed himself harder, positively flying towards the village of the Bone-Eater's Well, pursued by his yelling, panting and positively exhausted subjects.

_'Today, Naraku...today is when I rip out your damn throat!'_

* * *

Dawn came slowly, spreading its misty tendrils over the village of the Bone-Eater's Well as the sun steadily rose in a sky that was swiftly filling with dark clouds. Gaka watched it rise, noting the heavy cloud cover that threatened to hide the sun before it was fully risen. _'Amaterasu only hides her face when an unconquerable evil threatens to swamp the Earth,' _Gaka thought sadly as the sun soon became covered in clouds. _'Amaterasu cannot bear to watch those on her beloved Earth lose their lives to evil, and so chooses champions to fight the evil in her stead. Whether they win or lose is up to the weavers of fate, who have long before decided how the world will end.'_

Gaka moved his eyes from the sun towards the village behind him, the inhabitants of which had come out of their houses and were now milling about, confused looks on their faces as they took in the mass of dark clouds and the thunder that had started up not too long ago. The artist easily spotted the people who he considered to be his friends, despite the short amount of time he had gotten to know them.

"Look at the sky!" Shippou was crying, jumping about before latching onto Kagome's chest and clinging there with all of his might. "Why is the sky so dark?"

"I don't know, Shippou-chan," Kagome replied, hugging the kitsune close to her body as she shared a worried look with Sango, who was fingering her Hiraikotsu and stroking Kirara's head in a soothing fashion.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Miroku murmured as he raised his cursed hand in front of him and prayed fervently to the Buddha and Kami above, hoping against hope that it wasn't what he thought it was.

InuYasha said nothing. His pupils were dilating rapidly as he frantically scented the air, turning his head left, right, and up before repeating the process. _'Something's coming,' _he cursed to himself, _'but I don't know what it could fucking be!'_

Gaka got up from his position on the ground and walked over to the group, his black eyes very solemn. "I think it would be best if we moved away from this village," he told them, his voice very soft. "Something very evil is coming, and we do not need the innocents to be slaughtered." The images of the deaths of his own village flashed across his mind, and Gaka shivered involuntarily. _'No more,' _he thought. _'No more slaughter.'_

"Yes," Miroku agreed. "Something evil is most definitely coming. I don't yet know what it is, but...it..." Miroku trailed off, his back stiffening as his hand white-knuckled Shakujou. As one, the group turned and faced the West. A fierce wind gusted in their faces, bringing with it dead leaves and-

"Naraku's scent!" InuYasha howled, and as one the group tensed, hands flying for weapons. Shippou wailed and ducked his head, crawling onto Kagome's shoulder and burying his head in her neck. "It's Naraku's fuckin' scent!"

"Oh, Kami, not now," Kagome whispered. Her shoulder was still stiff, she needed time to practice, to recover; how could she protect everybody like she was supposed to if her shoulder was hurting her? Her clammy hands tightened on her short red bow as she tried to concentrate. _'I can do this,' _she told herself, even as her body trembled with fear. _'I can stand by my friends and fight!'_

Even as she thought this, InuYasha turned towards her and ground out, "Kagome, head for the well. I want you to-"

"NO!" she shouted back, startling everyone around her. "You are NOT sending me away! Not now! Not when I need to stay with you!"

InuYasha looked taken aback, then he regained his composure and bellowed, "You don't NEED to stay with us; you fuckin' need to GET TO SAFETY! I am _not _going to risk you when you're just recovering from being hurt, dammit!"

As the argument gradually escalated in temper, Kagome and InuYasha moved closer together until their faces were mere inches apart, their cheeks reddening as they roared and yowled at each other. Neither of them seemed to notice the bewildered stares they were getting, so intent were they on their fight.

"I don't _care _if I'm recovering; you need me here, and you know it! And besides, you fight all the time when you aren't even _halfway _healed! I'm _healed _and only a little stiff, and I'm sure once I fire a few arrows I'll be FINE!" Kagome yelled, jabbing InuYasha in the chest with her index finger.

InuYasha wasn't going to back down without a fight, and promptly snarled, "Yeah, I fight when I'm wounded 'cause _I AIN'T FUCKIN' HUMAN! _I can take a lot more shit than you, Kagome, don't think you can even take _half _of what I can!"

Kagome seized InuYasha's haori with both hands and shook him with every word she spoke as she gritted out, "I don't care about any of that! I-AM-NOT-LEAVING-YOU!" Kagome's strength seemed to double in her anger, since she managed to shake InuYasha hard enough to make his teeth rattle, if only slightly.

The hanyou grudgingly admitted that arguing with Kagome was only wasting precious time to get away from the village and find a suitable battle-ground. He wasn't going to force Kagome down the well, not when she would just turn around and come right back again, and then he wouldn't be there to protect her from whatever might be roaming in the woods during the fight. "All right," he grumbled, surrendering to the miko's will. "But you have to promise me something."

"What?" Kagome snapped.

InuYasha grabbed her shoulders and brought her face right up to his, their eyes meeting as gold stared sternly into brown. "I want you to promise that you'll stay by me _at all times. _If you're coming with us, I am gonna fuckin' _protect _you with everything I have. _I am not going to let Naraku kill you," _he growled as his hands squeezed Kagome's shoulders, though not with too much force, since he didn't want to break her collarbone.

Kagome blinked up at him, touched by his almost loving speech. Well, as loving as InuYasha could get. "I promise," she lied. How could she promise to stay with him when anything could happen? It was Naraku after all, and he had managed to separate them more than once before. It satisfied InuYasha, though, who let go of her shoulders with a small nod.

Miroku and Sango walked up to InuYasha and Kagome, Sango having taken advantage of InuYasha and Kagome's brief argument to change into her taijiya outfit. Kirara stood beside her, transformed into her battle-form and ready to follow her mistress wherever she went. Miroku looked grim, but determined.

"All right," InuYasha started as he looked around at the group members that surrounded him. "This is _it. _This is the day when we send Naraku back to whatever fuckin' hole he crawled out of!" InuYasha drew Tetsusaiga with a flourish, the youkai blade transforming into its true self as the hanyou rested it against his shoulders, his golden eyes as hard as steel and just as cold. "I ain't gonna lie to you; I have no fuckin' clue whether we're gonna survive or not, but I'm sure as hell ain't going down without making sure Naraku goes down with me." Miroku and Sango nodded their agreement, while Kagome looked at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes.

InuYasha growled his acknowledgment, then turned to Shippou. "Shippou, I want you and Gaka to stay with Kaede and the other villagers." Shippou opened his mouth to protest but InuYasha cut him off with, "I don't wanna fuckin' hear it, Shippou! This isn't going to be like the other fights with Naraku, an' I ain't gonna guarantee _your _safety when I can't even guarantee my own. You're only a kid, no matter how mature you are at heart, an' I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I got you killed." Shippou closed his mouth, tears in his eyes as he nodded reluctantly. InuYasha smirked at him as he reached down and ruffled Shippou's orange locks. It was the first time he had truly treated the kitsune gently. "You gotta protect Kaede and that baka Gaka for me, all right?"

Shippou nodded more fervently this time. "I'll guard them with my life!" he promised, trying to look determined even though the tears were still shining in his bright emerald eyes.

InuYasha turned to Gaka, who was watching him, sadness etched into every line of his visage. "Not only are you _not _a fighter, you've got shikon-no-kakera with you, whether you want to admit it or not, an' that's gonna make you a liability to us. I'm gonna have my hands full fighting Naraku and protecting Kagome, so you've gotta stay here, all right? And don't paint while we're gone, that'll just draw attention to yourself." The artist just looked at him, his sadness becoming more pronounced. "What?" InuYasha asked, slightly unnerved by the stare the weirdo artist was giving him.

"I cannot help but feel that this day will only end in sorrow for you, my friend," Gaka said softly. "I will do as you say, but know that nothing can stop me painting, not even all the darkness in the world. Also, know that I love and cherish all of you as I have not loved and cherished for almost ten years." Gaka looked at each of them in turn as his black eyes filled with tears, his hands folding over his stomach as he lifted his face to the sky. "May Amaterasu watch over you even as she hides her face from the rest of the world," he breathed. Then he lowered his face to the kitsune who looked like he was seconds away from bursting into tears. "Come, little Shippou. Let us join Kaede-sama and my Amaterasu in her hut." Shippou nodded and leaped onto Gaka's shoulder.

Before Gaka turned and started walking away the kit managed to sob, "G-good luck, you guys!" As the young artist's back vanished into the crowd of villagers, they could hear Shippou sobbing uncontrollably.

Kagome sniffed and scrubbed her eyes fervently with her sleeve. _'Poor Shippou-chan. He knows that this might be our last goodbye, and we can't even spend time over a long farewell.' _Sango and Miroku looked saddened as well as they mounted a mournful looking Kirara. InuYasha just looked more pissed off, which was sort of his way to express upset. "Hop on, Kagome," he told her as he crouched down. Kagome nodded and got onto InuYasha's back, pressing her face into his neck as his hands wrapped around her legs.

Kagome let a few tears fall out of her eyes as InuYasha began leaping through the trees, followed closely by Miroku, Sango and Kirara. _'Please don't let this be our last goodbye,' _she prayed to whatever Kami might be listening to her. _'Please let InuYasha, Miroku, Sango, Kirara and myself make it through this final fight alive so we can go on with our lives and rejoin our loved ones.' _The faces of her family rushed through her mind. Her mama, Souta, and her jii-chan; none of them would have any idea of what she was getting into back in the Sengoku jidai, five hundred years before their time back in the Heisei jidai. Then she thought of how InuYasha had tried to force her to return home before the fight began, and of how she had refused to go. _'I'm sorry,' _she told the images of her family that still rushed through her head. _'I chose InuYasha over you guys. But I know you'll understand. I love InuYasha with all of my being, and I am going to stand beside him, no matter what our future holds.'_

InuYasha finally stopped running when he reached a large field that was far, far away from the village where Kaede, Shippou, Gaka and the other villagers were hiding. The clouds overhead had darkened considerably as they moved farther and farther away from the village. The sky was practically black, lightning bolts flashing regularly from cloud to cloud as thunder boomed and wind howled.

Kirara stayed in the air, although she let Miroku jump off of her back and onto the ground. The houshi knew that he fought better on land than he did in midair, and he wouldn't hinder Sango so much if he was on the ground. Kagome got off InuYasha's back, landing lightly on the balls of her feet as she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and nocked it to the string, ready to start fighting at a moment's notice. InuYasha readied his Tetsusaiga and got into a defensive position in front of Kagome. _'Nothin' is gonna hurt Kagome while I still have enough breath in my body to fight!' _he shouted silently as he exposed his fangs in a feral snarl.

To their surprise, Naraku was not the first person/youkai to arrive at the field. A whirlwind appeared in the distant East, twisting and turning as it made its steady and speedy way over to the field where InuYasha and company were currently situated.

"Great, just what I _didn't _need," InuYasha growled, an annoyed look flashing across his tawny eyes.

"Don't be so sure of that," Kagome chided gently as she put a hand on the small of the hanyou's back, trying to soothe him with her touch. "We need all the help we can get, especially since this is starting to look like our final fight. Don't turn your nose up at a potential ally, InuYasha." InuYasha gave a small snort of derision, but managed to relax a little as the whirlwind got even closer.

It burst through the trees that surrounded it and abated just as suddenly as it had come as Kouga stopped running and looked around. "Hey, Kagome," he greeted, giving her a wave rather like a salute. "How's my woman doing?"

"Not right now, Kouga," Kagome hissed nervously, very aware of the less-than happy hanyou standing in front of her. He was giving Kouga a look that would send a lesser person to the grave. "InuYasha needs all of his concentration to go into the fight, y'know."

Kouga shrugged. "If dog-breath dies in battle, you'll be free to be my woman at last. If he wants to go and get distracted, all the more power to 'im." At that moment, InuYasha resolved to pay as much attention as he possibly could to the dark hanyou when he arrived, lest he should be killed and Kouga get Kagome.

"Look!" Miroku, who had long ago tired of InuYasha and Kouga's squabbles over Kagome, had turned to the northeast and seen a ghostly glow steadily approaching the field. Then several shinidamachuu floated into the field, their white bodies undulating through the static air.

Miroku and Sango looked at each other, resisting the urge to groan aloud. So not only was Kouga here, but Kikyou was coming too? With both Kagome and InuYasha's rivals in the vicinity, it was going to be an interesting experience, to say the least. Miroku took note of the now forced smile on Kagome's face. He knew that she was going to stick to her 'we need all the allies we can get' hypothesis, but she, like InuYasha, was not happy that her rival had shown up for the fight.

Only a few seconds after the first shinidamachuu arrived, the main entourage came, bearing Kikyou along with them as they floated silently to the ground, letting the undead miko drop down to the Earth as they disentangled themselves and floated away. Kikyou fixed the group at large with an almost uninterested stare. She was here for Naraku, and for nothing else. InuYasha felt Kikyou's presence approaching the field, and left off arguing with the ōkami prince to dart over to her, which, of course, left Kouga to flirt with Kagome, who fixed InuYasha's back with a look that would've melted granite.

"Kikyou! What the hell are you doing here?" he growled, although his voice was a lot gentler than it usually was.

Kikyou looked at him, her face impassive. "The same reason you yourself are here, InuYasha, and the same reason the ōkami is here, too. We are all here to kill Naraku."

InuYasha opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a loud screech from behind him. Apparently, Kouga had given Kagome a rather unwanted kiss on the cheek, and now the young miko was hiding behind Miroku while Kouga tried to land another kiss. "You fuckin' ōkami!" In a flash, the hanyou was there, swinging Tetsusaiga at Kouga's head as he protected the rather grateful Kagome and Miroku (who wanted to conserve his strength for the fight yet to come).

"Get out of it, dog-breath!" Kouga snarled. "She's mine! You already have _your _woman," he gestured to Kikyou, "So leave Kagome alone, you fuckin' pup!" InuYasha growled and swung Tetsusaiga again. Kouga jumped away, the blade missing his fur-clad legs by mere inches.

Miroku and Sango shook their heads. Kirara made a sound like a derisive snort. Kagome just sighed.

Kikyou, however, looked to the South and said with false calmness, "He comes."

Her words were quiet, and yet they tore through the field like a gunshot. The two fighting canine youkai stopped their quarrel and tensed towards the South, while Kagome raised her bow to a ready position. Sango and Kirara took to the sky, and Miroku readied his Kazaana, hoping that this would be the last fight he would have to use it in. Now that they were concentrating on the South, they could feel the ominous aura approaching them. Never before had Naraku's evil aura been so strong; it was like a physical barrier pushing against them, and they knew that all the flora and fauna that lay in Naraku's path would be nothing more than dust in his wake. Sango, the only person who could be affected by Naraku's shouki, put on her poison-filtering mask so she wouldn't be sundered by the dark hanyou's poisonous aura.

Far too soon the wind was rushing past them in a howling tempest as the trees all wilted into skeletal specters. Every animal in the ghostly woods died simultaneously, their skeletons dropping to the ground where they stood. A dark tornado of shouki could be seen heading towards the small group on the ground, Saimyoushou buzzing around it like flies around honey. The tornado crashed to the ground in an explosion of purple shouki; wiping out all the grass in an instant as the shouki rushed out in a great purple wave. InuYasha leaped in front of Kagome and shielded her from the worst of the shouki, while Miroku and Kouga clung to the ground with Shakujou and claws and hoped for the best. Sango was better off than the people on the ground since she and Kirara were in the air, and Kikyou could purify the shouki around herself, although her clay body was unaffected by the gaseous poison.

Standing in the center of the devastation was none other than Naraku in all of his evil glory, his skeletal armor glinting in the flashes from the lightning above, his long black hair whipping to and fro in the tempest as his evil red eyes looked at his nemeses with what could only be described as contempt in the scarlet depths. On his left side stood Kanna, the pale mirror child, while Kagura floated at his right. The wind-witch had a reluctant air about her, like she would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else.

"So here you all are," Naraku purred as his gaze traveled from person to person, "All of my enemies are here...every single one of you has a reason to hate me, and now you have a chance to get rid of me forever, or so you think." Naraku let out a laugh, a cold cackle that rang around the dead field and sent a shiver down the backs of the humans while making the youkai and the undead miko tense. Then Naraku held out one hand and showed his enemies what he held. It was the Shikon-no-Tama, so corrupted that it resembled onyx rather than quartz. The tiniest of tiny cracks marred its otherwise iridescent surface. "Three shards," Naraku told them, his eyes glinting with a malicious light as he reveled in the looks of shock on the faces of his foes. "Three shards are left in this world, and then the jewel will be completed."

_'Three shards?' _Kagome thought, slightly confused. _'If Kouga has two shards, and Gaka has one, then...oh, Kami...I'm so sorry, Sango...' _Kagome looked up at her taijiya friend, tears glittering in her eyes as she saw Sango reach the same conclusion Kagome herself had just reached. The youkai-taijiya's face was semi-calm, but two trails of tears were falling steadily down her face. The loss of her brother, while untouched upon by Naraku, was nonetheless painful for the last of the youkai-taijiya.

"Naraku, you bastard!" InuYasha shouted, hefting Tetsusaiga and pointing it at the evil eye in the center of Naraku's chest. "Today is the day when we wipe you off the face of the planet!"

Kagome nodded. _'Too many innocent people have died for this moment. Hopefully, no more will be lost today as we purify Naraku's evil!' _The young miko glared at Naraku, her voice condemning as she yelled, "We _will _destroy you, Naraku!"

Shouts of agreement rang from the houshi, ōkami prince, and the taijiya. Kikyou remained silent. Naraku turned towards her, a smirk on his face. "Nothing to contribute, Kikyou?"

"I have nothing to say to that which will soon be dead," Kikyou told him, her face still impassive. "I will make sure your soul goes to the deepest depths of Hell."

Naraku's smirk widened, and he lifted one hand, as if he was about to start a race. "We shall see," he hissed, "just _who _goes to Hell."

His hand descended in a vicious swipe. From the skeletons of the trees came youkai; thousands upon thousands of them, enough to make the swarm that had destroyed the castle of Amaterasu look like a small handful. This...this was a _true _army. Naraku and his incarnations were swallowed by the mass of youkai bodies, hidden from the eyes of those who would kill him.

"Fuck!" InuYasha shouted as he swung Tetsusaiga in a sharp arc. "You fuckin' coward!"

The only response InuYasha got was another cruel laugh.

The fight had begun.

The mass of youkai bodies did what Naraku himself couldn't do alone; they separated the group into its individual members, making them easier to pick off. Miroku's Shakujou was a golden blur as he slew youkai after youkai, throwing ofuda whenever he had the chance and rendering his enemies to dust. Sango threw Hiraikotsu with one hand while wielding her katana with the other as Kirara used tooth and claws to fight any youkai foolish enough to challenge her. InuYasha tried his utmost to stay near Kagome, but more and more youkai squeezed themselves in between the hanyou and miko, and InuYasha couldn't use any of his big moves for fear of hitting Kagome or one of his other friends.

Kagome could take care of herself by obliterating enemies with her sacred arrows, but her quiver was already dwindling down to a handful of arrows, which she needed to save for Naraku. She waded through the growing piles of youkai corpses, shielding her head with her arms as she sought Naraku's aura. _'If I can just get to Naraku,' _she thought, _'I can show the others where he is, and hopefully make a path for them to get to him!' _Suddenly, Kagome broke through the whirling, writhing mass of youkai and into an open pocket. She blinked, astonished at the sight she was now seeing.

Naraku was fighting Kikyou, who was aiming and releasing arrows faster than Kagome would have thought possible. Naraku was laughing as he managed to dodge arrow after arrow, watching as numerous youkai were slain by the sacred weapons. "Can you not shoot straight, Kikyou?" the dark hanyou taunted as he floated high above Kikyou, his mad red eyes glinting. "Are your hands trembling with anticipation for my death?"

Kikyou's face stayed impassive, though her eyes were alight with rage. "Naraku," she hissed. "You will die, you cowardly monster." Just as Kikyou was nocking another arrow, Kagome noticed something glinting at the edge of the clear space. It looked rather like a-

"Kikyou, _look out!_" Kagome cried, leaving the edge of the arena and charging towards her previous incarnation. Too late; Kanna's mirror shone brightly, trapping Kikyou's reflection in its iridescent surface. The dead souls that gave Kikyou the energy to move gushed out of her clay body in a massive wave, drawn towards the mirror and vanishing into it, one by one. Kikyou collapsed on the ground, rapidly weakening as the dead souls left her. The undead miko gritted her teeth as Kanna's mirror absorbed the last of the spirits, leaving her immobile.

Naraku seized his chance and charged, one spike on his wrist elongating into a fierce weapon, the same one with which he had wounded Kikyou before. His eyes were shining with bloodlust, his excitement at being able to kill the woman his human heart desired blazing in his crazed red irises.

The youkai at the edge of the arena were sundered as InuYasha's Koungosouha, Miroku's Kazaana and Sango's Hiraikotsu managed to clear out three-quarters of the youkai, while Kouga blasted through the enemies on his own. The fighters were drawn to Naraku's youki, eager to finish the battle, yet scared at what might face them.

InuYasha's heart leaped into his throat when he caught sight of Kikyou sitting on the ground, Naraku charging toward her with his hand raised to strike the fatal blow. Heart hammering wildly, he leaped over corpses and dodged falling body parts, his eyes on the woman he had once pledged to become human for and the dark hanyou who threatened to take her life time and time again. "KIKYOU!" he howled, swinging Tetsusaiga as he made a frantic dash towards the undead miko. _'Don't let me be too late,' _he prayed fervently, _'don't let me be too late to save her!' _As InuYasha entered the arena, he thought he saw something dart out in front of Kikyou; something green and white-

"NO!" the hanyou screamed as he realized too late just who it was.

There was a sickening _crunch_. Blood sprayed out over the crumbled ground.

Kagome gagged, choking on the blood that flooded her throat as Naraku's bony wrist-spike pierced through her stomach, shattering her spine as it exited her body. Naraku was smirking in triumph, even though he had been rather surprised when he had stabbed Kagome and not Kikyou, as he had intended. As the reality of what he had done sank in, Naraku started grinning with perverse relish, gazing down at Kagome with the same crazed look he had given Kikyou. He slowly floated into the air, taking Kagome with him as he soared toward the black sky.

"So you choose to follow in the path of your previous incarnation," he laughed, "dying by my hand when you could have been safe." A thoughtful frown crossed Naraku's face as his gaze went from Kagome to the hanyou on the ground, who was staring in shock at the bleeding miko dangling from one bony tendril, and then to the undead miko who was staring at Kagome as if she had never seen her before. "Why save Kikyou, Kagome? All you had to do was tell InuYasha that you couldn't save her from me and you would have him all to yourself. Why save her?"

Kagome retched, a small trickle of blood trickling from between her open lips as the dark red stain spread slowly and inevitably over her front, trailing down both ends of the bony tendril and falling down to patter on the earth below. "I...I'm...I'm not as...as selfish...as most people...take me for," Kagome managed to gasp, her pained brown eyes meeting Naraku's red ones. "I...I love...love InuYasha. I...would never...sacrifice anything...that he loves...for my personal...happiness."

Naraku laughed, then with a mighty jerk, he tore the tendril out of Kagome's stomach. Blood exploded out of her body in a scarlet burst as the miko fell, toppling from the sky like a bird that had just been shot. Kouga howled and charged towards the falling miko, but was stopped when Naraku turned and sailed toward him, his bloody hand hefted as he challenged the ōkami prince to fight. Miroku and Sango both went to help Kouga, since Naraku now blocked the pathway to Kagome.

InuYasha's mind was in a dark fog. It was like he was sealed once more to the Goshinboku, for his mind was not obeying him, was not allowing him to move towards the woman who was falling from the sky, blood streaming from her in a scarlet wave. All he could do was stare, Tetsusaiga's tip resting on the ground as the hands clenched on its hilt loosened. Was this really happening? Could this be happening? Maybe it was a trick. Maybe Naraku had created some illusion...an illusion complete with the stench of blood...It had to be an illusion. This could not, could not, could not _could not__ COULD NOT _be real.

Two familiar voices whispered in his mind as the hanyou's golden eyes watched her fall...fall...fall...

_"I suspect that the artist over there has some sort of foresight; he is able to see things that we ordinary mortals cannot." _

Kaede's voice faded as Gaka's rang in his ears, this time fraught with much more meaning that it had been when the artist had first delivered his warning. _"If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest, you are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her, mark my words."_

A terrible, animal-like scream ripped itself out of InuYasha's throat as his muscles finally unlocked. Lifting Tetsusaiga from where it rested on the ground, he charged towards the place where Kikyou was sitting, where Kagome would land if he was not there to catch her. The few remaining youkai charged InuYasha, their slavering mouths gaping wide open as they tore at him. InuYasha swung his katana in a few short, vicious arcs, slaying the youkai as he continued to move forward. The crests that marked him as an inu-prince were clear on his cheeks, and the whites of his eyes were flashing red as his youkai blood lent its power to the desperate hanyou. Yet he still couldn't move fast enough-why couldn't he move fast enough? _'I won't make it in time!' _he howled in his head, even as his claws lashed out and sent bright daggers of blood towards one group of youkai as his Tetsusaiga's Kaze-no-Kizu obliterated another group.

_If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest..._

Suddenly, the white bodies of Kikyou's shinidamachuu were weaving their way through the fights that surrounded them, summoned by their mistress's call. Stranger still, they did not carry souls with them, and they did not converge around Kikyou. Instead, the shinidamachuu wove themselves into a harness and caught Kikyou's reincarnation before she could hit the ground, giving her something much softer to land on than the cracked earth below. The obedient youkai lowered the girl to the ground and deposited her in the center of Kikyou and Naraku's battle-field. Then they abruptly dispersed, leaving her to converge around Kikyou, steadily helping her to rise.

_...you are going to regret every word you ever said to her..._

InuYasha finally broke through the constricting youkai and burst into the clearing, his youki flaring as he caught sight of the miko lying on the ground, a crimson pool forming around her as blood continued to gush out of the gruesome wound. Even though Naraku, Miroku, Sango, Kirara and Kouga were still fighting, the sounds of their battle seemed to be receding into the distance as InuYasha slowed his approach, his heart picking up speed as each second dragged onward. Shortly thereafter, Tetsusaiga was clattering away, toppling from his numbed hands as he fell to his knees at the side of the girl from the Heisei jidai. His trembling hands gently lifted her off the ground, turning her over so she was resting comfortably in his embrace, protected from the rest of the world by his wide sleeves.

_...and every action you ever made to her..._

"Kagome?" he whined, his ears flattening themselves against his head as he looked into the pale face of his young miko. "Kagome, say something! Don't die on me!"

_...__**mark my words.**_

Kagome's eyelids fluttered, then opened with obvious effort, trembling like the just-fledged wings of a butterfly. Her gorgeous brown eyes were filled with tears as she beheld InuYasha's face, a smile caressing her quivering lips as she laboriously lifted one hand and placed it on InuYasha's striped cheek. "Inu...Yasha," she gasped, blood streaming out from between her lips. "You...you came for me. I'm...I'm glad." Her smile grew wider as her eyes shone brighter.

The look on her face was absolutely tearing the hanyou's heart apart. It thudded wildly in his chest, and he thought that any moment now, it would rip itself to pieces and be done with it. This couldn't be it! This couldn't be happening! There had to be _something, _some way for him to repent and save her! There was still time left, wasn't there? "Dammit, Kagome, don't die! I'll..I'll try to get you to the well; I'm sure the people in your era-"

Before InuYasha could finish his sentence, Kagome moved her hand from his cheek to his lips as her head lolled from left to right in a negative way. "Too late," she whispered, more blood trailing past her lips as her smile became rather sad. "Far...far too late for me." Kagome's head lolled to the side, gesturing towards Kikyou. "Saved...saved Kikyou...saved her for you."

InuYasha's eyes widened as he took in what Kagome was saying. He moved her hand from his lips and positively howled, "You...you _saved_ her? F-For _me?_ But...but...dammit, why the **hell **would you throw away your life for her? Everyone knows you hate her!"

Kagome shrugged weakly, the hand that had previously been on InuYasha's lips falling to his shoulder as her other hand moved to her stomach, trying and failing to staunch the rapid flow of blood from the gaping wound in her abdomen. "Naraku...asked too. I...I will give you...the same...same answer. I...I love you, InuYasha. I...I didn't...didn't want you to be sad...sad because Kikyou died again. I heard...heard how you...you screamed her name. You love her...so much...enough...enough to leave me behind...time and again. My death...death seems like...like nothing compared to...to what hers would have been."

A burning sensation started up in InuYasha's eyes as a great..._something _welled up in his chest, threatening to block his throat with its pulsating mass. Kagome's bloody face blurred, and he felt something hot and wet start to burn scalding trails down his face. A tiny part of InuYasha registered the fact that he was crying. "You...you complete and utter _idiot!_" InuYasha buried his face in Kagome's hair, not bothering to hide the tears that streamed freely down his face, so hot and unfamiliar to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kikyou slaying Kanna and shattering the mirror, freeing the thousands of souls captured inside of it, most of them soaring towards the dark heavens above. The shinidamachuu caught and released as many dead spirits as they could catch into Kikyou's chest, revitalizing her and restoring her movement and power. This fact registered little with the hanyou as he held his dying woman in his arms and wept into her hair.

"InuYasha," Kagome murmured, her tone faintly surprised. Her hand moved back up to his cheek as she caught some of the shining teardrops on her fingertips. "You're crying. I've...I've never...never seen you cry before."

"Baka, baka, baka!" he howled, ignoring what Kagome said as he screamed to the dark skies above, "How the hell could you think that I didn't love you enough to miss you if you sacrificed your life like this? _HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT I DIDN'T LOVE YOU?_" InuYasha filled his lungs once more and yowled so loudly that Kagome wondered crazily if her family on the other side of the well heard him too: "I LOVE YOU, KAGOME!"

Kagome's head lolled as the smile on her face steadied, shining like the hidden sun as she placed her other hand on InuYasha's cheek, brushing away his tears with her trembling fingertips. "Don't...don't cry, InuYasha," she whispered, for now the hanyou was starting to sob, great choking gasps escaping from his throat at odd intervals as his red/gold/blue eyes swam with tears that continually rushed down his cheeks and dripped onto her shirt to vanish amidst the blood that continued to gush from her wound. "Don't cry anymore, InuYasha...you've made me happier than I can ever remember being." It was true. Her feebly beating heart was filled with a warmth that she couldn't recall having before. It was as if Kikyou had never been resurrected, and Kagome had never seen InuYasha embracing her underneath the Goshinboku. How strange that her happiest moment would come right before her death.

InuYasha gave a weak snort as he clutched Kagome to his chest; a drowning man clinging to the only piece of driftwood in a turbulent ocean, determined to hang on until the sea beat the wood out of his fingers. "Baka," he repeated, his voice hoarse with repressed sobs, "D-did you think I was gonna start _laughing_?" The words made him shudder. Hadn't she said the same thing to him before, nearly a year ago when he had pretended not to care? Was that when she had started believing that her feelings were unrequited? Dear Kami, how could he have been so fucking _stupid? _Why did he have to realize this when it was too late to change anything?

Kagome gave a half-giggle, half-gagging sound, the flow of blood increasing sporadically as she did so. Then she retched again, more blood rushing out of her mouth and staining the front of her shirt. "Don't...don't have much time," she managed, her breath coming in shallower and shallower gasps as she fought the blackness that threatened to overwhelm her.

InuYasha's grip became tighter as his multicolored eyes became desperate. "No...NO! Don't you _dare _say that! I _will _save you-I _have _to save you! I...I promised," he groaned as the sobs rose in his throat yet again, "I promised to protect you, Kagome. I promised..."

Kagome's hand feebly patted his cheek as she managed to touch the tip of her nose to his own. "Do...do I get...a last request?" she whispered. If InuYasha had been human at the moment, he wouldn't have heard what Kagome had said, her voice was so quiet. Unable to speak anymore, InuYasha nodded, squinting in a futile effort to dam the tears. "Can...can...can I get...a goodnight kiss?" she asked, her voice trembling with the effort it cost her to speak.

InuYasha looked at her, looked at the woman he had loved from afar for such a long time. He had been so frightened to love again, after what had happened to him and Kikyou, and so had managed to convince himself that the feelings he had toward Kagome were of friendship and not love. The hanyou had also convinced himself that it would be better, in the end, if he kept his distance from Kagome. If she didn't love him in return and chose to go home at the end of their journey, it would be better to have no memories of intimacy between them. Once again, Gaka's words rang in his mind. _"If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest, you are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her, mark my words."_

InuYasha leaned forwards, his eyes closing over a new wave of tears as he placed one hand behind Kagome's head to lift her lips up to his. The hand on his cheek clenched gently as Kagome's brown eyes drifted shut, her own tears beginning to fall as their lips met in a gentle kiss; a kiss that was not only their last kiss, but their first.

The hanyou's lips nipped and pulled at his miko's, silently pleading and begging her to stay alive, to stay with him, to forgive him for not being there to save her. At first, she returned the kiss with all the strength she had left, her lips giving as much passion to the hanyou as he gave to her. Kagome put all of the love she felt for InuYasha into this one last kiss as she felt his fangs scrape against her bottom lip, demanding and pleading at the same time. Yet the kiss could not last forever, no matter how much they wanted it to. Kagome's strength was quickly leaving her, the black spots in her vision eclipsing the world as a fierce cold spread from her stuttering heart to her limbs, numbing her body and robbing her soul of what little life remained it.

"Gomennasai," she murmured when her lips and his parted for a breath.

"No. No sorry," was his reply. His tears burned her cheeks.

Kagome's hand fell from InuYasha's cheek and landed with a thud on the ground. Her body went limp in his arms as she managed to whisper one last sentence: "I...I will...I will always love you...InuYasha."

Kagome's last breath rushed out from between her lips in the sweetest smelling wave InuYasha had ever scented. Her head lolled to the side, and InuYasha heard her heart stutter and choke, giving one last ferocious bound before falling silent. Like Kanna's mirror before it, the hanyou's heart shattered into a thousand tiny shards, finally giving up the ghost and surrendering to the inevitable truth. The sobs he had been fighting to hold back burst from his chest in the agonized wail of a wounded animal as he clutched the body of the woman from five hundred years in the future to his chest and sobbed into her hair.

Nothing mattered anymore. As far as the hanyou was concerned, the fight was already lost. There was no reason to continue fighting, was there? If there was, he couldn't see it. Just let the world end and be done with it, he thought. Just let it end.

* * *

Meanwhile, the fight against Naraku continued, but it was not going very well for InuYasha's group. Miroku and Sango were both wounded, and with every pound of their hearts more blood leaked out of their bodies and weakened them, causing their swings to become weaker and the blows less accurate. Kouga seemed to be faring little better, managing to dodge more of Naraku's blows but was unable to land any hits of his own. Kikyou, who had rejoined the fight after slaying Kanna, aimed arrows at Naraku's various and sundry body parts, but like Miroku and Sango, she was only chipping pieces off what was proving to be a rather large stone. No-one paid any attention to Kagura, who was circling high over the battle, having fled to the skies as soon as Naraku had signaled his youkai to attack. She had no interest in losing her life and every interest in preserving it.

Kouga was just about to leap up and try to land a blow with the human katana he had drawn when he heard something. Kouga glanced to the left of him, where the sound had come from, and saw Hakkaku, Ginta and the wolves emerging from the trees, finally catching up with Kouga after four hours of running. "Kouga!" they called, their eyes widening as they took in Naraku, Kouga, InuYasha's group and Kikyou.

"You i-"

Kouga never got to finish his sentence. Naraku, who was and always would be a dirty cheating bastard, took advantage of Hakkaku and Ginta's arrival to strike out at Kouga, simultaneously lashing out to the side of him to keep Miroku and Sango at bay. The dark hanyou's hands elongated and became ten long tentacles, five of them reaching for Kouga while the other five whipped out to meet the taijiya and houshi. Three tentacles pierced the ōkami's chest and shredded his heart, killing Kouga in an instant. The other two seized the shikon-no-kakera in his legs and wrenched them out as Naraku threw the ōkami's body aside and took the shards into his body to be reabsorbed by the jewel. The other ōkami howled and wailed as they ran towards their downed leader.

Of the five tentacles that lashed out at Miroku and Sango, three of them connected directly with Kirara and sent her tumbling from the sky, landing on the ground with a tremendous smash and sending Sango flying from the neko's back. Miroku managed to sever one tentacle with his Shakujou, but the other connected with his leg and dealt him a serious wound to the upper thigh. Sango slowly got up, wincing as she felt the arm that she had landed on when she and Kirara had crashed. It had broken pretty badly, which was unsurprising. Sango got up and returned to the nekomata, ready to resume fighting.

The taijiya stopped as she looked at Kirara. Something was wrong.

The nekomata wasn't breathing.

"Kirara!" she cried, and flung herself on the giant cat's body. When Kirara had crashed to the ground, she had landed on her neck, and she had crashed hard enough to break the bones located there. The loyal nekomata had died in an instant as her mistress was catapulted off her back.

"Kirara," Sango whispered as she stroked the thick cream-colored fur of her youkai companion. Then she buried her face in the still-warm fur and began to cry. The youkai-taijiya's tough outer shell had finally cracked under the load of the deaths that weighed down on her. First her village, then her brother, and finally Kirara had been taken from her, and now she was alone.

Miroku got up from where he had fallen, grimacing as he felt the wound in his upper thigh protest the action. As he looked around, the houshi felt a deep sadness well up in his throat at the sight of the devastated field. His ears were serenaded with a sorrowful trio; the wolves' howls, Sango's sobs and InuYasha's anguished cries combining into the saddest sonata that the houshi had ever heard.

_'No more,' _he pleaded to the sky. _'No more deaths today. We cannot take any more.'_

There was another boom of thunder as the sky opened up and rain began pelting the Earth below. It was as if the Kami themselves were weeping for those who had been lost.

Naraku's laughter ripped through the anguish as he threw back his head and screamed his mirth to the pouring heavens above. "Pathetic!" he yelled, his eyes glinting with even more triumph than before. "You humans and youkai, all of you who stand beneath me, each and every one of you is _pathetic! _You claim that love is stronger than anything in this world, and yet see where this love has gotten you!" Naraku gestured over the area. Over InuYasha, who still wept over Kagome's broken body, over the wolves, who clustered around their dead leader in a bedraggled huddle, over Sango, who was buried in Kirara's sodden fur.

Kikyou headed over to Miroku, several cracks on her body where wounds would have been on a regular human. "It is down to you and I, houshi-sama," she said sadly. "We must try our best to destroy this monster above us." Miroku nodded his assent, a flicker of determination flashing briefly in his mournful eyes.

Naraku, who had somehow heard what Kikyou had said, laughed again. "A wounded human houshi and an undead miko destroy _me? _I, who holds the almost complete Shikon-no-Tama in my hands, _**I, **_the one who has managed to kill everyone who dared to stand before me? You dare challenge he who might as well be a _Kami?_"

Before Miroku and Kikyou could even fathom an answer to give him, a blinding flash like a lightning bolt split the air, turning the raindrops that touched it to steam as the light sliced through Naraku's left shoulder and destroyed his arm. The triumphant look on his face turned to pain and rage as the dark hanyou turned around, his eyes mad with pain as he roared, "Fool! You dare strike me?"

"You are no Kami."

Sesshoumaru was floating high above the ground, Tokijin clasped in his one hand as his Mokomoko-sama twisted and undulated about his feet. The daiyoukai lord of the West had arrived at the field after three days of nonstop travel, and was now ready to do battle with his foe.

"Fashionably late as always, Sesshoumaru," Naraku gritted out as his remaining hand went to the stump of his arm and clutched it.

"Hn." Sesshoumaru ignored the dark hanyou and cast his eyes around the battle-field, taking in all of the youkai corpses without comment. The dai-youkai saw his half-brother's soaked and sobbing form sitting on the ground, cradling the human miko's body to his chest. He also saw the wolves gathered in a circle around Kouga, and Sango weeping into Kirara's fur. Then Sesshoumaru looked up into the raining sky and saw Kagura circling high above, her white feather a mere dot against the black sky. He knew when she saw him, because her circling abruptly stopped, as if she had hit an invisible wall.

"If these humans will not finish you, then I will," Sesshoumaru stated, lifting Tokijin high into the air as he readied himself for his next attack.

Naraku shot out his remaining hand and tried to deflect Tokijin's attack. Before he could reach the dai-youkai, a cry reached his ears.

"KAZE-NO-KIZU!"

InuYasha had smelled Sesshoumaru's scent on the damp breeze and glanced up to see that Naraku had been injured. Now he was standing, Kagome cradled against his chest with one hand as the other was wrapped about Tetsusaiga's hilt. His crests were still present, but his eyes were a clear gold, filled with anguished hatred. "The last time," he snarled, "Naraku, you've stolen the woman I love from me _for the last damn time. _Now I will avenge Kikyou _and _Kagome!"

Naraku shot out more tendrils, trying now to reach the hanyou who stood on the ground, defying him to the last.

The Hiraikotsu sliced through every single one of his tendrils, sending them tumbling to the ground. It returned to Sango, who stood over Kirara's crumpled form, tears mixing with the rain falling down her face. "I will not let Kirara's death go unpunished!" she shouted, whirling Hiraikotsu over her head. "Or my village's death, or Kohaku's death! I will _kill _you and send you to the deepest pits of Hell!"

Naraku, now frantically searching for an out, called up to Kagura. "Kagura! Stop circling up there and _fight them!_"

Kagura sailed down and positioned herself in front of Sesshoumaru, lifting her fan as if she was about to attack him. At the last second, she whipped around and sent her wind-blades sailing towards he who called himself her master. They ripped through his neck and severed his head from the remainder of his body.

"You-!" Naraku's snarl was laced with more fear than hatred. _'Why? Why does my body not regenerate itself? Why am I **dying**?'_

The fighters converged on Naraku's disembodied head, their eyes grim and determined.

Miroku took the chance and started talking, playing on the growing fear in Naraku's eyes. "You make fun of us for loving and cherishing those around us? Say that we have no power because of that love? It was love for Kikyou and Kagome that kept InuYasha alive when he should have died, love for her family that kept Sango moving towards your destruction, and it was the love that Kouga had for his tribe that motivated him to fight until the very end." Miroku turned his amethyst eyes up toward Sesshoumaru and Kagura, and said, "I'm...not quite sure if Sesshoumaru was motivated by love or not, but I'm sure his intentions were...honorable. But it is true that love gives us strength. And now that strength is going to help us kill you."

Naraku's eyes flicked from face to face; grim determination and hatred shone from each and every one of them. (Save one: Sesshoumaru just looked bored.)

_'Why?' _the dark hanyou asked again as he tried to utilize the power of the Shikon-no-Tama to reform his body and become strong, or at least get away from those who desired his death.

It did not respond.

Then, far, far too late, the hanyou who had once been Onigumo realized why it no longer responded to him. The wish he had made on the jewel was for him to gain the strength to forget Kikyou and destroy everything that reminded him of her. The only way to destroy everything that reminded Naraku of Kikyou...was for Naraku himself to die.

"Hell," he hissed as his red eyes closed.

Two swords swung, one bow hissed and one boomerang was launched as the fighters launched the last attack against Naraku. Every single attack hit the dark hanyou dead on, tearing him to shreds, and the shreds to nothingness.

Naraku, murderer and purveyor of so much evil, was finally destroyed.


	11. Rewrite, Part I

The rain pounded the roofs of the many huts in the village by the Goshinboku. All of the villagers knew that the storm was a bad sign, and shivered each time they heard a crash of thunder. Inside of one particular hut, Kaede stoked the fire, making sure that it was kept high so the occupants of her hut wouldn't get too cold or wet. Said occupants included herself, a few of the vagabonds who had been passing through their village, Shippou and Gaka.

Gaka was standing at the door, his pack full of paintings clutched to his chest as he watched the rain pound the earth into a muddy slush. "Gaka-san," Kaede chided as she turned her eye upon the artist. "Ye will catch cold if you stand at the door. Why don't you come by the fire and warm up?"

Gaka did not move. Instead, he started speaking. "My mother always told me that when the dark clouds that hide Amaterasu's face start to rain, it means that the Kami above are weeping at the lives that evil has stolen from the Earth. The Kami weep for those who have died to protect all that is good on this day."

Shippou stopped coloring and looked from Gaka to Kaede, his eyes fearful. "Does that mean that not everyone's going to come back, Kaede?"

"I do not know, child," she said, then addressed her next question to the artist. "Have ye seen something, Gaka-san?"

Gaka finally went to the fireside and sat down. His black eyes were mournful. "A hanyou's tears," he whispered, his eyes a million miles away as he stared into the flames. "The howls of ōkami. The only survivor's mournful cries." Gaka tore his gaze away from the fire and stared out at the rain again, this time through the window. "These premonitions are dark, and I cannot be sure of their accuracy. But sorrow...sorrow is what I mainly see. Success, yes, that too, but mostly sorrow." Gaka's voice grew heavy with a helpless kind of fury as he whispered, "I wish I could explain what it is that I see, but I cannot. It is just...too impossible for words."

"What about your paintings?" Shippou asked. "Did you paint anything about the future? They say a picture's worth a thousand words, after all."

Gaka smiled slightly, his black eyes glittering with a sad sort of pride. "Yes, a picture is worth one thousand words, but I am afraid that what I see cannot be described by either words or paintings. It is...oh, why should I try to explain it? I cannot even _paint _it!"

Shippou decided to leave the topic of Gaka's newest foresight alone and instead pursued something of far more importance: the topic of his friends. "Do you think everyone survived the fight against Naraku?"

Gaka turned to his painting of Amaterasu, which was still hanging on the wall of Kaede's hut. "Amaterasu's divine light has almost completely perished now. Her tears splash on the Earth outside of this hut. My inner eye sees nothing but sorrow; indescribable sorrow. I can say with fair assurance that something bad has happened to our friends, my dear kitsune."

As the last word left Gaka's mouth, the rain outside abruptly stopped. "The rain stopped!" Shippou cried, and leaped for the hanging reed mat that blocked the doorway.

"Shippou, where are you going?" Kaede exclaimed, hauling herself to her feet and grabbing her bow and arrows. "It is still dangerous outside!"

"I wanna go see if everyone made it, Kaede!" the kit cried. "I wanna see if everyone's all right!"

Kaede was about to call the kitsune back, but Gaka held out an arm to stop her. "I think Shippou will be all right. I can no longer feel the evil aura that permeated this land as I did when the monster first attacked." Gaka raised his face to the still-black sky outside, his face mournful. "However, Amaterasu is still hiding from us...my mother told me that means she needs to recuperate from the sorrows of the Earth. Her tears are exhausted, but she is still sad..." Gaka trailed off, his eyes still fixed on the sky.

"Yeah, sure," said Shippou, who wasn't really listening to the artist but instead concentrating on transforming into his bird-form so he could fly to the place where the battle had taken place.

Gaka snapped out of whatever daze he had gone into and said, "Shippou, can you bear my weight?"

The kitsune looked at him, his emerald eyes curious. "Why?"

"I want to come with you. I want to see with my own eyes what this battle has cost us. I want to see if I can help out in any way. Please take me with you," Gaka pleaded, his black eyes still just as sad as they had been when he and Shippou had said farewell to InuYasha's group. Shippou's lip trembled, but he nodded in fierce agreement. Then, with a puff of light-blue smoke, the kitsune had transformed into his white-winged bird-form, squatting so as to allow Gaka to get on his back. The kitsune/bird took to the air, heading West as artist and kit searched for their friends.

* * *

The rain had finally stopped, but the sun refused to shine. It wouldn't have mattered if the sun was shining in a bright blue sky, because the scene beneath the pitch-black sky was just as sorrowful as it had been when it was raining.

The mounds of youkai corpses weren't disintegrating as they usually did, so Miroku, Hakkaku and Ginta decided to start piling up the bodies for burning. The task was gristly, but the grunt-work took their minds off of the terrible grief that gnawed at their hearts.

Yes, Naraku was dead, but the cost had been far, far too dear for their liking.

Far away from the youkai carcasses, in the clearing where Naraku and Kikyou had fought, there now was a simple place for their fallen companions to rest before they readied their bodies for the final journey. It was here that InuYasha and Sango were sitting, both of them drenched from head to toe in blood, although in InuYasha's case it wasn't all his own blood. Both taijiya and hanyou were dull-eyed as they sat on the muddy earth, their eyes fixed on the three that lay in front of them.

Kirara had been dragged out of the pit where she had fallen, her fur cleaned to the best of Sango's ability and the terrible death-grimace wiped off of her muzzle. Sango said that she wanted to lay her to rest with the rest of her people back in the ruins of the youkai-taijiya's village. What Sango planned to do afterward, she wouldn't say.

Kouga lay next to Kirara, his breastplate cleaned and patched up to hide the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been torn up, his legs bandaged to mask the wounds where his shikon-no-kakera had been torn out. The ōkami stated that Kouga was to be buried at the ancestral burial ground of the youkai-ōkami tribe, where all of his people went to their final rests. Then, they would join up with their brethren in the North and tell them of Kouga's death. A new leader who was equal to the fallen Kouga would be hard to come by, Ginta said, but they thought that Ayame, the red-haired youkai-ōkami who was supposedly Kouga's bride, would probably be able to do the job. "She'll be heartbroken," Hakkaku had said sadly, "but she's the strongest youkai-ōkami, after Kouga."

Kagome...Kagome had broken everyone's heart, and there had been a mighty argument as to how she was to be laid to rest. The ōkami had said that she was Kouga's mate, and by youkai-ōkami law she would be laid to rest beside their fallen leader. InuYasha had gone into a red-eyed rage (since his youkai blood had not yet abated) and had threatened to beat the wolves black and blue if they set so much as one pinky-toe near Kagome.

Miroku and Sango had said that Kagome should be treated as a miko, since she was Kikyou's reincarnation, which would mean cremating her and setting her ashes in a temple so she could watch over the villagers of the Bone-Eater's Well. InuYasha had also shot this idea down, saying that Kagome had never wanted to be a miko, but had been forced to become one out of necessity as she hunted shikon-no-kakera.

InuYasha then said that there was one place that Kagome would want to be laid to rest, and that would be her home: the Heisei jidai. Since he was the only person who could go through the well, that would mean that InuYasha himself would have to take Kagome to her final rest. He knew her family would most likely disown him for failing to keep Kagome safe, but even if they didn't, the entire Heisei jidai reminded him of her. That was enough to insure that taking Kagome's body home would be the last trip through the well InuYasha would ever take.

While Sango was uncertain of her future after Kirara's planned burial, the ōkami could see InuYasha's future in his irises, which had gone from bright gold to dullest yellow. Hakkaku had told Miroku and Sango in a low whisper that it was the look of Living Death. "Youkai who've lost a mate look like that," he'd explained. "Even though they haven't been killed, they act like they're dead because their hearts are still with their dead mate." When Miroku had asked if youkai could get over the loss of a true mate, Hakkaku had shaken his head. "If you got your heart ripped out, would you survive?" he'd asked sadly in response.

A short distance away from where the dead lay, Sesshoumaru, Kagura and Kikyou watched the mourners and the body disposal group at work. Since the two youkai weren't really attached to the deceased, they had opted instead to watch over them in case a stray youkai decided that the corpses would make a good snack. Kikyou was standing with them because she knew her presence pained InuYasha. She could feel it in his aura; a strange, almost tactile ache that nearly knocked her over when she first felt it.

"Sesshoumaru," Kagura suddenly gasped, breaking a silence which had stretched out for a few minutes. The simple name cracked through the air like a whiplash, and everyone's heads turned about to look at Naraku's former incarnation, now a free-thinking, free-moving youkai. The wind-witch's red eyes were alight with a sudden idea.

"Hn."

"Your katana, the one that's sheathed at your hip. Can't it resurrect the dead?"

Silence followed the question; a silence that threatened to stretch on forever.

The dai-youkai could see the dumbfounded looks on his brother's face, as well as on the face of the taijiya and ōkami. It was obvious that all of them had completely forgotten about the healing katana that could resurrect one hundred souls in a single swing. In an instant, Sango and InuYasha were charging towards the dai-youkai, both of them jostling and snapping at each other as they approached Sesshoumaru. Ginta was behind them as well, Hakkaku hot on his heels.

"Well?" InuYasha demanded, his eyes flashing red with barely controlled anger and excitement, the marks on his cheeks still as strong as they had been during the fight. "Since you've _obviously _forgotten about your damn katana, will you resurrect them?" The hanyou's hand waved towards the dead who were now guarded by Miroku, who had decided to keep his distance from the mad-eyed group. If this turned out badly...

Sesshoumaru glared at his younger half-brother, his golden eyes filled with a controlled impatience. "I will resurrect them, not out of any endearment to you, but because I believe that it will dull what has otherwise been a lose-lose situation. But be warned," the daiyoukai intoned, his golden eyes narrowing, "Tenseiga cannot resurrect everyone who dies. If I cannot resurrect some of them, or all of them, do not blame me." That having been said, Sesshoumaru strode towards the dead on the ground, but before he was even halfway there, there came a shout from high in the sky.

"KAGOME! KIRARA!"

After spotting the dreary sight on the Earth below, Shippou transformed back into his true self with a puff of blue smoke and launched himself at Kagome, burying himself in her bloody breast and sobbing uncontrollably. Seconds later, Gaka landed with an "Ooomph!" on the ground, sending some of his scrolls flying as the top of his pack came open.

Upon seeing the artist, InuYasha remembered what Gaka had told him about Kagome once again: _"If you do not do anything of real merit to that girl in the forest, you are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her, mark my words." _Temporarily forgetting the fact that there was a chance at her resurrection, InuYasha charged the artist and hauled him into the air by the front of his tunic, growling, "You knew, dammit, _you knew. _I don't know how, and I don't know why, but _you knew._" InuYasha started shaking Gaka, his eyes blazing red and gold as he bared his teeth in a fearsome snarl. "You knew and yet _you let Kagome go into battle? _Why the FUCK didn't you stop her? Why did you _let her fuckin' get herself killed? _YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER FUCKING LIFE BUT YOU DID NOTHING!"

By the end of InuYasha's rant, he was shaking Gaka so hard that the artist's head had become a blur. "IiIiIif yYyou wWwWwould sSssSsstooop sssShaking mmMme IiiI coOOuld ttttell Yyou," Gaka wavered, his black eyes rolling about as he fough to stay conscious. InuYasha dropped the artist unceremoniously on the ground, and for the second time in as many minutes Gaka landed with an "Ooomph!" on the ground, squashing one of his dropped parchments as he did so. "My foresight is not an exact science," Gaka groaned as he got on his feet, picking up his squashed painting and peering at it to see if it was unharmed. "There was no way for me to know for sure whether or not Kagome-sama was going to die."

Gaka let the painting unfurl, showing it to the small group of spectators. It was a perfect replication of InuYasha, his face in Kagome's hair as he wept, the sky behind the pair dark and black with lightning bolts arching from cloud to cloud. It was similar to the third scene in his triptych, except that this painting was far more melancholy than his triptych could even hope to be. "I had no way of knowing that the future I painted would come to life," Gaka announced as he let the painting float away on the wind, not looking as it landed on one of the corpse-piles. "If I had, believe me, I would have tried harder to save her life." Gaka gestured over to where Kagome, Kouga and Kirara lay, where Shippou was now, buried in Kirara's fur. "Do not think for even one second that I desired this." The ghost of Gaka's past became so strongly etched in his black eyes that even InuYasha had to look away from him.

"If you are all finished," Sesshoumaru growled, a touch of annoyance in his voice, "I will proceed." Everyone fell into a reverent silence, giving the dai-youkai room to swing his katana as they watched and waited.

Sesshoumaru stopped directly in front of the fallen ōkami prince, who was in the middle of the three dead comrades. Slowly, he drew Tenseiga and held it loosely in his hand as he looked for the pallbearers of the afterlife, who guided the soul to either Nirvana, the netherworld, or Hell. Slaying them would resurrect the dead body they surrounded.

_'I only see the pallbearers surrounding one of the corpses. The other two...cannot be saved.' _Sesshoumaru raised Tenseiga high in the air and brought it down in a mighty arc, the blue light it emanated eradicating the unseen pallbearers.

There was a short pause, during which everyone held their breath and waited for something to happen. The silence seemed to drag on forever as the living watched the dead.

Then there was a sound like a reversed crack: the sound of bones mending in an instant.

Everyone waited.

Then, slowly, tremulously, Kirara's eyelids opened, revealing her clear, sparkling red eyes as the nekomata slowly revived. She gave a growl, then got slowly to her feet, shaking herself as she did so and looking around in confusion. Sango gasped, then, forgetting her broken arm, charged forth and hugged Kirara about the neck, sobbing into her fur and stroking the tips of her black ears, her heart overwhelmed with happiness at the return of her faithful nekomata. Kirara purred and licked Sango's neck, her twin tails waving behind her like two flags in a soft breeze. For a while, the world was right again. Miroku smiled at Sango, happy that she was so happy. Shippou flung himself on Kirara's back and kissed the thick fur there, telling his neko friend that he would give her fish for the rest of her life if she wanted him to.

However, InuYasha was not joining in the celebration. He was staring at Kagome, his eyes a dull yellow once more as he slowly approached the miko's still form and touched her icy cheek with his clawed fingertips.

"She will not wake, little brother," Sesshoumaru told him.

"Why?" InuYasha's voice was hollow, but quickly filling with anger as he lifted Kagome into his arms once more and held her face to his still-striped cheek. "Why isn't she waking? Why didn't Tenseiga work? Why can it work on everybody else in the fucking world but it won't work on Kagome?"

The ōkami were also not joyous at the return of the nekomata, since their leader lay still upon the ground. "Kouga," Ginta howled, "Kouga isn't waking up either!" The other ōkami soon joined in, their howls echoing mournfully off the landscape.

"Tell me," Sesshoumaru asked, choosing to address the ōkami, "Is there a suitable candidate for succession of the youkai-ōkami?" Startled by the question, Hakkaku and Ginta nodded. "Are you two relatively unharmed?" They nodded again. "Did the miko die before or after the ōkami was slain?"

InuYasha answered with, "Kagome was already dead by the time Naraku tore the bastard's heart out."

Sesshoumaru didn't acknowledge his brother's heartbroken words as he continued with, "Then that is why I cannot resurrect him. The ōkami knows that while he'll be missed, his tribe can be managed without him, and he also knows that the miko died as well, so he has passed on to where Tenseiga cannot reach him." The eyes of the ōkami filled with tears, but they nodded in understanding.

"But what about Kagome-chan?" Sango asked, her arms still wrapped around Kirara's neck as she took in what Sesshoumaru was saying, the smile on her face replaced by a look of shock, along with more tears in her eyes. "She had school, and family, not to mention all of us and InuYasha, the man she loved more than anything in this world. Surely that's enough to hold her back, isn't it?"

Kagura looked from Sango to Sesshoumaru to InuYasha, her eyes unreadable. "She does have a point, Sesshoumaru. Are you sure you didn't resurrect her because of some unresolved tensions between you and your brother?"

InuYasha tensed, a growl issuing from his throat as his hand twitched towards Tetsusaiga's hilt, but Sesshoumaru's glare towards Kagura made the hanyou stay his hand. "Do not accuse me of falsehoods, woman," he growled. "I said I would try to resurrect her, and so I did."

"But Kagome didn't come back!" InuYasha bellowed, his eyes narrowing as his arms tightened around Kagome's body. "I'd better have a fuckin' explanation before I believe _her _version, bastard!"

Kikyou raised one hand to stall Sesshoumaru before he could return InuYasha's insults with a few of his own. The daiyoukai turned to the undead miko, one eyebrow raised. "Do you have something to say, miko?" "Yes," she answered, then turned and walked toward InuYasha. She stopped when he growled at her. _'InuYasha, do you blame me for her death?' _she wondered silently, her eyes becoming sad. _'In your eyes, I suppose I am as much to blame as Naraku, just because Kagome believed that you loved me more than her, and that mistake on her part cost Kagome her life.' _A sad smile crossed Kikyou's lips as she thought, _'You would never blame her for her death, though. You would either blame me, Naraku...or yourself.' _Kikyou looked away from InuYasha's hateful stare and instead cast her gaze around at the rest of the group members. "All of you know that Kagome is my reincarnation, do you not?" At their nods, the miko continued. "However, the cycle was not continued in the usual way. The Shikon-no-Tama," she held up the jewel in question, which she had retrieved from the spot where Naraku had fallen, though the others had forgotten about it, "had been burned with my body and so accompanied me to the netherworld. I was perfectly content to rest there forever, except...my dying wish. I had wished to be with InuYasha, and the Shikon-no-Tama granted that wish, although, like all of the wishes the jewel granted, it did not grant it in the way I would have expected it to be; with my resurrection and InuYasha's freedom. Instead, I was reincarnated as Kagome five hundred and fifty-one years after I shot InuYasha with the sealing arrow. I believe you know the rest of the story."

"Yeah," InuYasha growled, pain shooting across his eyes before it was replaced by confusion. "But it doesn't explain why Kagome isn't coming back. Does it?"

"It does," Sesshoumaru interjected, and Kikyou conceded to him, nodding at the daiyoukai to continue. "The Shikon-no-Tama acted as my Tenseiga and dragged the miko's soul back from death. I am no Kami, so I can only save a soul from death once. If she had been reincarnated in the 'usual way,' Tenseiga might have had an effect on her. But because it was by the hands of the jewel and not 'natural,' the miko cannot be revived." Sesshoumaru turned and began walking away from his brother. His job here was complete, and he felt no need to stay.

"Hey-wait! Bastard, where are you going?" InuYasha yelled after him, his eyes blazing with fury as he took a step toward his brother, Kagome still clutched in his arms.

"I can do no more here, so I am leaving, little brother," Sesshoumaru replied, not stopping as he continued on his way, Kagura following in his wake. It seemed that Naraku's incarnation had grown quite attached to the youkai lord...

InuYasha's eyes became dull once more as he rested his striped cheek against Kagome's head. He did not cry because his tears were gone, his soul much too weary for any more sobs. _'Why does fate have to be so cruel to me?' _he lamented silently. _'Every time I have a shot at being happy, the Kami always have to take everything I love away from me.'_

_'Why can't I have a happy ending, too?' _

The ōkami looked at each other, then at Miroku, who was the only person they really trusted to speak to at that moment. InuYasha had already threatened to kill them once, and the kitsune and taijiya were crying once more, sad for InuYasha and mourning the renewed loss of their friend. "Can...can we take Kouga away now?" Ginta asked.

"You do not have to ask me for permission," Miroku told them.

The ōkami nodded, and together Hakkaku and Ginta bore Kouga between them, and, moving slowly and reverently, they started to walk towards the North and the den of the youkai-ōkami tribe. Even though they had always complained about how fast Kouga ran, they couldn't help the tears that welled up in their eyes as the youkai-ōkami went on their snail-paced way.

Meanwhile, Gaka had gone over to Kikyou, his black eyes immensely saddened by the unfortunate turn of events. "I did not think it would be that easy," he commented as he stood beside the undead miko. "Hers was an exceptional soul, and it could not be called back from the great beyond that easily."

Kikyou shot a sideways look at the artist. "You have the power of deep insight, do you not?"

Gaka gave the miko a half-smile that did not reach his eyes. "Some would say the same about you, my lady."

Kikyou's eyes went from his face to his pack. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the bottom left-hand corner of the pack. "You also carry the last shikon-no-kakera," she accused.

Gaka sighed. "Yes, and now I realize how foolish I have been. How could I think that this accursed jewel came from the Kami, this jewel which causes nothing but misery wherever it is found? The good things it can do is far, far out-shadowed by the sadness in its wake. Just look at poor InuYasha-san," he said, gesturing towards InuYasha. "Ever since he heard about the Shikon-no-Tama, his life has been one long tragedy written by those who crave misfortune and pain above all else."

Kikyou listened to Gaka's little speech without comment, then she removed the jewel from within her haori and showed it to Gaka. "This is the almost-complete Shikon-no-Tama," she told him. "It only requires one more piece to be whole once more."

Gaka stared at the now-pink jewel, then he set his pack on the ground, opened it, and removed the shikon-no-kakera that was buried beneath all of his belongings. He placed it in Kikyou's palm, where it sat for a few seconds before the whole ensemble emitted a small flash of pink light. When the light cleared, the Shikon-no-Tama sat, whole and sparkling, in Kikyou's palm, like it had been when she had received it fifty-one years ago from a group of youkai-taijiya, and like it had not been since the day one year ago by the river when Kagome had shot the Corpse-Dancing Crow with its own foot and shattered the jewel into a hundred tiny pieces and set the wheels of fate in motion.

"It is complete," Kikyou murmured as the jewel shone with a beautiful pure light, throwing sparkles around like wonderful fireworks.

Gaka stared at it, not entranced but disgusted. "Yet it still poses a threat to whomever carries it. It cannot be shattered, and it cannot be burned, lest the same fate that befell Kagome-sama happens to some other poor soul. What can we do to rid the world of the Shikon-no-Tama for good?"

Kikyou moved her eyes from the jewel in her hand to the hanyou standing some distance away from her. The clouds had just broken, revealing the most beautiful sunset any of them had ever seen. The setting sun transformed the dark black clouds into ruby red and bright golden streaks of light hanging in the fiery orange backdrop that was the sky.

InuYasha was silhouetted against the majestic view, Kagome's limp body clutched in his hands as he watched the sun setting. Kikyou could see the hanyou's shoulders tense slightly. _'The sun is setting on his and Kagome's time together...and he probably considers it the last sunset he will ever see.'_

"An unselfish wish," Kikyou murmured. "Only an unselfish wish can destroy the jewel for good."

Gaka's face crumpled. "What wish can be called unselfish? A wish in of itself is selfish!"

"What about a trade utilizing the Shikon-no-Tama? A wish made that sacrifices one's life?" Kikyou countered.

Gaka opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again and said, "You intend to sacrifice yourself?"

Kikyou did not answer the artist; she still stared at InuYasha's back, her eyes distant and sad. Gaka looked from her to InuYasha and back again, his eyes thoughtful. "You would do it for him, rather than for her." It was a statement, not a question.

Kikyou sighed. "It is a foolish thing to feel, but yes. I would do this for InuYasha, and InuYasha alone. Maybe I hated him when I came back to this unwanted life, but now I know better. But...he is not the InuYasha I met. Kagome warmed his heart and became his savior in the time it took for me to trust him to come within twenty feet of me. It is no wonder he loved her so much...she trusted and cared for him in a way I never did. Even when I tried to get him back...InuYasha was far beyond my reach."

Gaka's eyes also fell on the hanyou's back as he murmured, "Obviously Kagome did not see it that way. She felt...that she was second, that no matter what she did, InuYasha's heart belonged to you and to you alone. It was only because InuYasha became so confused...which should he choose: the comfortable past or the wild uncertain future, the woman who wanted him to be a pure human so he could fit in or the woman who wanted him to stay the same hanyou he had always been?" Gaka's eyes looked so ancient as he watched the heartbroken hanyou watch his last sunset, his next words the softest of soft whispers. "I think what makes him the most unhappy is the fact that if he had chosen her, really and truly chosen her, this could have been so easily avoided. She would be alive, and she would be happy."

Kikyou did not respond. Then she started to walk forwards, ignoring the pitying look that Gaka gave her as she moved towards the hanyou. She was about three feet away from him when he growled, warning the undead miko to keep her distance. "Stay the hell away from me," he snarled.

"InuYasha," she sighed, "It is not my fault that Kagome died." His shoulders stiffened, his arms tightening around the pitifully small body in his arms. "Nor is it yours," she continued, reaching out despite his obvious reluctance to touch the taut muscles of his arm. "InuYasha, the only person to blame is Naraku. He is the one who slew her; not you, and not me." She paused for a few seconds, then added, "Just like he killed me."

InuYasha moved away again, and Kikyou could hear the self-hatred in his voice as he said, "Yeah...but it's not the same, Kikyou. Kagome," he choked on her name, "Kagome died in my arms, and I _could do nothing about it. _I couldn't save her..." The hanyou's ears drooped as his shoulders slumped. "I tried so hard, but I couldn't save her..."

_'Yes, InuYasha,' _Kikyou thought, _'and you cannot live with yourself for failing.'_

"Then...this will be our goodbye, InuYasha."

InuYasha didn't even acknowledge her words. Kikyou smiled sadly at his back as she walked a short distance away, away from the hanyou, away from the artist, away from everything.

Slowly, she removed the Shikon-no-Tama from within her haori. It was a mark of how much InuYasha was hurting that he hadn't even thought of the Shikon-no-Tama and what it could do. _'Not that it would have worked for him, anyway,' _Kikyou thought.

The jewel shone brightly in her cupped clay hands, all the colors of the rainbow flickering on her face and chest as its pure aura grew and diminished, grew and diminished, over and over again. It could sense the wish she held in her heart, like it had when she had taken it to the netherworld. Kikyou lifted the Shikon-no-Tama to her breast, where her heart would be if her body wasn't composed of clay and bones, closing her eyes as she concentrated with all of her might on what she needed to do.

_'Please...my final wish...I have caused InuYasha so much pain since I was revived. Nothing but pain and confusion that could have been avoided if I had stayed at rest. __Shikon-no-Tama...use all of the power you can to recall our soul from the netherworld and return it to its rightful place...Kagome's body.'_

_'Sacred Jewel of the Four Souls...I wish for InuYasha to be happy.'_


	12. Rewrite, Part II

_'I wish for InuYasha to be happy.'_

The Shikon-no-Tama glowed with a fierce white light as all of its power was directed inside of Kikyou herself. The fragment of Kagome's soul that she carried inside her clay body started to resonate, pulsing rhythmically in her chest like some strange parody of a heart.

Kikyou could remember when she had first been revived; the oni-witch Urasue had taken all of Kagome's soul out of her body and put it in the clay shell that Kikyou currently inhabited. However, Kagome's strength had proved greater than her own, and the younger miko had managed to call her soul back into her body, leaving Kikyou with a small fragment that had to be nurtured with the souls of the dead in order to keep herself 'grounded,' so to speak. Now the Shikon-no-Tama gave enough power to Kikyou's fragment of soul to do the same thing as Kagome had done nearly one year ago: call the soul back from wherever it may be. Hopefully, the Shikon-no-Tama would have enough power left by the end of the transaction to transfer their soul back into Kagome, where it belonged. Slowly, little by little, the undead miko could feel her power returning to that one-time state when she'd possessed the entirety of Kagome's soul as it returned, bit by bit, from the world beyond.

Kikyou felt immensely drained, but it was only to be expected; the Shikon-no-Tama was burning itself out with the intensity of the wish she had made, so it had to use her power as well. Not that it would have mattered if it did or didn't use her power, she thought wryly as her chest began to glow like the jewel in her hands. Her life was forfeit either way.

Kikyou fell to her knees as the dead souls rushed out of her, pushed out by the massive entity that was Kagome's soul. Her shinidamachuu chased after them, but she called them off. _'I have no need of them any more,' _she told them, knowing that the ghostly youkai could hear her thoughts and would obey her order without question. As quickly as they had come, they dispersed, leaving their mistress to her fate.

The undead miko now felt as though she were being burned alive as her nearly completed soul grew hotter and hotter, pulsing with power as the Shikon-no-Tama grew white-hot in her hands. At the same time, a small voice whispered in her head. _'Where am I? What's happening?'_

Kikyou realized that this was Kagome's voice. Again, she thought back to the time in Urasue's home. Kikyou had begged the outside world not to say her name while still a part of Kagome's much larger soul. Now Kagome was awakening from her death, and, like Kikyou had been so long ago, she was confused and frightened at the unexpected turn of events. Half of Kikyou's mouth turned up in a small smile. _'Then we have come full circle, and now it is time for me to go.'_

The undead miko closed her eyes for the last time as she leaned her head back to the darkening sky. _'I leave it to you, then, Kagome...make InuYasha happy in the way I could never hope to replicate.' _The Shikon-no-Tama exploded in a burst of sparkling light as Kikyou fell to the ground, an empty shell once more. Her soul had vanished from her body, and Kikyou had gone back to the grave, where she belonged.

Miroku rushed over to the fallen miko. He'd seen the burst of light and felt the immense power rushing through and around Kikyou, as well as the sudden release that had ended with Kikyou falling to the ground. "Kikyou-sama!" he cried, touching the miko's clay shoulder with the hand that had once been cursed. "Are you all right? Kikyou-sama!"

A hand descended upon the houshi's shoulder, making him start and turn about. Gaka was smiling sadly down upon him, his black eyes unreadable. "It is too late for any goodbyes, my good houshi. The lady has gone to a place where you cannot touch her." Gaka turned his black eyes to where InuYasha stood, still watching the sky with Kagome tucked in his arms. "Now we wait...and hope," Gaka murmured. Something in the artist's voice made the hope in the houshi's heart rise up from the bleak pit it had been cast into. Something was going to happen, and it would hopefully be a good thing.

Miroku went over to Sango, who was also watching InuYasha, along with Shippou and Kirara. For the second time that day, the living waited on the dead, hoping against hope that something would happen.

InuYasha felt their eyes on his back and turned to growl at them. "Will you fuckin' _leave me alone? _I don't _need _your fuckin' sympathy, or whatever you think this is!" With that, the hanyou leaped into the air, away from the battle-field, away from the bodies that still lay strewn all over the ground, away from the sadness that still permeated his heart.

Miroku, Sango and Kirara made to follow InuYasha, but Gaka held up a hand to stop them. "Leave him. I think he needs to be alone for a few minutes." A small smile touched Gaka's lips as he watched the hanyou's rapidly retreating back. "Though probably not for the reasons you are thinking," he amended.

* * *

InuYasha couldn't stand the stares anymore. The others had been staring at him for untold hours, ever since they had discovered that Kagome had died, in fact. He knew that they pitied him. InuYasha wasn't used to pity, and realized that he didn't like it. Not when it concerned _her. _

Then came the unfairness of Kirara's resurrection, and the discovery that Kagome couldn't be saved. InuYasha couldn't help but to feel angry at his older brother for not trying harder to resurrect Kagome; not that he would have been bursting with fraternal love if he _had _managed to do it. After that, there had been Kikyou's calm deliverance of the exact reason why she couldn't be resurrected, which had torn the remainder of the hanyou's heart into little pieces with every damned word the dead woman had spoken.

Kikyou.

Once upon a time, InuYasha had been prepared to accompany Kikyou to Hell, as penance for failing to save her from Naraku. It was a horrible fate, but InuYasha would have done it for the woman with whom he had once pledged to live out his life with. Then InuYasha had seen Kagome's tears and felt the warmth of having a place to belong, _really _belong, where he was loved despite being a hanyou. Protecting Kagome had made InuYasha strong in a way he'd never even dreamed of before. Sure, Kagome had been more emotional than most women, and seemed to like using the subjugation rosary against him, but she had always apologized for it later, and it didn't take away from the fact that he was..._happy, _yes, _happy _when he was with her. With Kagome, he had discovered what it meant to be truly in love with someone.

It hadn't been the same as with Kikyou. When he'd started trusting her, InuYasha had sort of started enjoying Kikyou's company, although the woman's sad face had always made him pity her, if only slightly. He'd come to expect their meetings, and sometimes even looked forward to them. However, the hanyou wasn't going to even try to deny the fact that he had lived for Kagome, and breathed in her scent whenever he thought she wasn't looking. Every time she laughed, his brain melted, and every time she cried, he wanted her to smile. He had become so attached to the miko from the future that when she left for home, he usually drove everybody crazy with his restlessness. The longer she was gone, the more irritable he became until he finally had to chase after her and invent some reason for her to come back.

Shortly after the incident with Akago, InuYasha had realized that he'd fallen head over heels in love with Kagome. InuYasha had been afraid to tell Kagome that he loved her-partially due to the fact that Kikyou was still around, and mostly because he thought she would either laugh at him or tell him 'osuwari' a thousand times-and instead told Kagome that she made him feel peaceful and happy, which was still true, but not the whole truth. At the time, it had been sufficient enough to keep Kagome by his side.

But it hadn't been enough in the long run. Kagome had still thrown her life away for Kikyou, believing that the undead woman's life was more important to him than her own. Strangely enough, that was another thing that he'd liked about Kagome: she had been utterly selfless and willing to protect until the very end. If only that end hadn't come! _'If only I'd told her the truth about my feelings...' _the hanyou lamented, _'If only I'd been able to leave Kikyou behind like I should have...dammit!'_

InuYasha finally stopped running when he reached the one place that had always provided a sense of peace, no matter where he went. (Or rather, _when _he went.)

Goshinboku.

For the first time in his rather long life, the hanyou felt thoroughly exhausted as he collapsed against the rough trunk of the Goshinboku, his legs splaying out beneath him as he rested his head against the bark of the ancient tree. This was, without a doubt, the longest, most terrible day of his entire life, and with nearly two hundred years of misery to go by, that was saying something. He closed his eyes as he held the small, cold body of the woman he loved to his chest, unwilling to let her go to the netherworld. He knew he was being unreasonable and unnecessarily stubborn, but when the alternative was letting Kagome go forever...

_'Not that I have forever,' _he thought bitterly. What measure was forever when his life was nothing? What measure was eternity when the Earth was cold and lifeless? This...this was _hell, _plain and simple. _That _would be his forever. And what a hell it was. The wounds of his heart had never stung so much before, nor had they felt like they would never be healed again.

So engrossed was the hanyou in his dark thoughts that he didn't hear the small series of reversed cracks as the vertebrae that had been shattered when Naraku had stabbed Kagome mended themselves, nor the soft whispering of new flesh growing to cover the gaping wound, softly mending the damage the bone tendril had done to her insides. Had he been paying attention, he might have also noticed that the scent of death was slowly fading away, and color was leeching back into her skin. But he did not.

A shooting star arched across the sky, bright and blinding.

InuYasha slowly opened his eyes, watching as another, then another shooting star flashed across the heavens, which were now sparkling with thousands of tiny stars, like minuscule diamonds sewn into black velvet. The River of Stars, or as Kagome called it, the Milky Way, looked even more magnificent on this night than it had ever been before. _'I always wondered why Kagome liked looking at the stars,' _he thought. _'Guess I'll never know now.' _The thought drove a spike of icy shame into his heart. Slowly, InuYasha drew Kagome close, laying the stripe of his cheek against her head as he cradled her ever so gently. _'Forgive me, Kagome...forgive me for not telling you sooner. Forgive me for not saving your life...like I promised you.'_

Suddenly, her body arched in his arms like she had received an electric shock. Startled, the hanyou reacted on instinct: leaping away as he put one hand on Tetsusaiga, warily watching his miko's body for any other signs of activity.

_'What the HELL is going on?'_

* * *

Kagome felt like she was swimming up from beneath a very dark, very icy sea. All she remembered was dying, everything vanishing as she was thrown into a dark void. Then there had been a feeling like someone had plucked up from wherever she had gone to and was sewing her back together, piece by piece. Confused and frightened, Kagome had asked where she was, privately wondering why everything was heating up and why she felt like a backseat driver.

The only reply she had received was one sentence: _'I leave it to you, then, Kagome...make InuYasha happy in the way I could never hope to replicate.' _Before she could even begin to fathom what the voice meant, there had been some sort of explosion, and everything had gone black again.

Now she was waking up, and she felt like absolute _shit. __'Can someone get the number of the bus that ran me over?' _the miko thought.

She gasped for air; Kami, her lungs felt like they hadn't been used in ages. Kagome gagged and choked on the sweet air as she rolled over and rose up onto her knees, her hands slowly moving to cover her aching eyes. _'Owww...' _she thought, _'What happened to me?' _

Kagome lifted her hands from her eyes, wincing at the bright light that jabbed at her eyelids like thousands of tiny knives. She blinked several times, trying to get the picture to adjust into something recognizable, besides just bright lights and blinding colors. As the world slowly came into focus, her memories of what had happened began to come back to her. She remembered fighting youkai, Kikyou falling to her knees, Naraku's charge, the feel of the tendril slicing through her body and InuYasha's tears as he kissed her goodbye.

_'Dear Kami...I died. I really and truly died.' _

Kagome blinked in confusion. This wasn't the dark place that she had gone to after she'd told InuYasha that she would always love him; it was the clearing of the Goshinboku, the place where she had met InuYasha and set him free. The breeze was whispering in the trees, and the moon was shining in a sky filled with stars. _'Why am I here? Heck, why am I alive? Naraku killed me...didn't he?' _she wondered, one hand moving to cover her heart, which was beating, fierce and strong, within her chest.

"Hello?" she called, her voice hoarse from disuse and dry with thirst, barely audible and weak. "Is...is anyone there?" No response came, save for the rustling of the breeze through the foliage around her. "Hello?" Kagome called again, fear rising in her chest. She wasn't all alone, was she? Oh Kami, she _hated _being alone. It was what she feared above all else, ever since her father had died in a hit-and-run incident ten years ago when she was only six. "Please, _please, _somebody answer me!" she cried, shrinking down against the trunk of the Goshinboku as she curled up on herself.

Then she became aware of a presence in the clearing, and her miko training (incomplete though it was) told her that it was a rather powerful youkai. She looked around for the source of the youki, her eyes slightly wary as she did so.

"InuYasha?"

The hanyou didn't reply. His golden eyes were wide with disbelief, his body stiff and frozen as he stared at her. Kagome slowly rose and wobbled over to him, her legs tremulous and weak. Right before she reached him, her legs decided to quit on her and she sprawled to the ground in a big heap; or, rather, she would have if InuYasha had not caught her, moving so fast that Kagome felt dizzy trying to fit in how much time was in between her almost falling with her being in his arms.

"InuYasha," she whispered again. How she had missed his dear face; his beautiful golden eyes that reminded her so much of the warm light of the sun, his cute puppy-dog ears that were softer than the softest of down...Kagome frowned slightly. Those purple stripes that marred his cheeks-they were the marks of his youkai self! Had the hanyou lost his heart to his youkai blood?

"InuYasha, are you all right?" she asked, lifting one hand to trace the purple stripe on his left cheek. When her hand met his cheek, his eyes drifted shut as he leaned into her touch, a soft growl starting in his throat. "Your cheeks...what happened to you?"

The hanyou didn't answer her as he nuzzled her wrist, his entire body starting to quiver with a nervous energy. _'Could...am I dreaming?' _he wondered. He had to be: Kagome was standing right in front of him, still covered from head to toe in blood, but very much alive and well, her soft fingers touching his cheek with the all the gentility she possessed. Maybe her loss had caused him to go insane. _'If this is insanity...I'll take it,' _he thought. Just to confirm, though...

"Kagome..." he growled, almost whispered.

"What is it?"

His tawny eyes opened again as he looked at her, a deep, searching look, his eyes filled with disbelief, though there was a tiny flame of hope in the deepest part of his black, cat-like pupils. "Is...is it really you? Are you...are you really here?" As InuYasha spoke, one of his hands traced up her bloodied waist, past her chest, over her neck to rest on her chin, one clawed thumb tracing a pattern of small circles on her cheek as he gazed into her eyes.

Kagome remembered the hanyou's tears as he held her close to his heart, regardless of all the blood that had been streaming out of her body, remembered the way he had howled when she told him why she had done what she did, remembered how he'd yelled to the heavens that he loved her and how his lips had felt against her own...

"Yes, InuYasha," she told him, a tear slipping down her cheek as she stood on her tiptoes so she could rest her forehead against his own. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I came back. It's really me."

They remained like that for exactly thirty-six seconds before the hanyou moved his head down so that he could seize her lips with his own, one hand moving to tangle in her black tresses while the other moved to her waist. Eagerly, he pressed her body against his, wanting to feel her curves and contours against his own. Kagome, while rather surprised at the hanyou's openness, returned the kiss with eager fervor. No, she didn't know how she'd come back to life, but at the moment, she didn't care. She was back, and the man she loved was kissing her like there was no tomorrow, and everything was right with the world.

InuYasha felt as though his heart was about to explode out of his chest, it was pounding so hard and so fast. Only minutes ago, he'd been contemplating how long he was going to try to live without Kagome, and now, unexpectedly, she was here, alive and well, the wound in her stomach healed, her sweet scent no longer tainted by death. He wasn't insane, and he wasn't dreaming.

_SHE WAS ALIVE!_

_Now _the world was perfect. _Now _the hanyou felt the sweet sense of victory flood his senses, making his head reel in astonishment. Naraku was dead and Kagome was _alive _and she was _kissing _him, her wonderful scent filling his nose and mouth as he clung to her, eagerly exploring her mouth as she explored his own. There was so much that was still unknown, and so much that was still to come, but at that moment, they just didn't care. They were alive, and they were in love, and to them, that was all that mattered. Right now, the world was perfect, and they intended for it to stay that way.

"Dear Kami, I missed you so, _so _much, Kagome," InuYasha muttered as he took a breath. "I thought I was gonna _die, _I missed you so much."

"It's all right now, InuYasha. Everything will be all right," she murmured back.

Far above their heads, the shooting stars arched across the sky, as if the Kami themselves were celebrating the reunion of hanyou and miko. It was the rarest of rare moments; one of those moments where the Kami truly smile upon the Earth, the stars align, the signs are right, or luck is with the persons in question. It was one of those moments where everything turns out right in the end. Love triumphs over evil, light triumphs over darkness, and even the 'unwanted' hanyou gets the girl in the end.

All in all, it was the perfect end to what would have been a horrible day.

Life was good.


	13. The Love We Share

The stars were still shining in the sky, although the moon had dipped down somewhat when they returned to the field of battle. Kagome was riding on InuYasha's back, his hands curled about her calves, her face buried in his silver mane. He was moving slowly, savoring every moment he had with her like he was eating a chocolate dessert. Every breath she took, every time she shifted her weight around a little, every small kiss she placed on his neck was precious to him. (Although the kisses were a little unexpected.) Kagome had only been dead for a few hours, but to InuYasha it had been a lifetime; a virtual hell that taunted him with all of the unresolved tension, all of the 'what ifs' and the 'maybe could haves' whirling around in his brain until he'd wanted to scream with pain. Now, in a stroke of some weird-ass luck, she was back with him, and he intended to make every dream of his a reality. Before he started acting out his fantasies, though, there was a small matter of...well, _reality._

Kagome gasped when they arrived at the field. Having died before Naraku was defeated, she'd had no idea of the destruction the battle had wrought. The miko clung to InuYasha's shoulders, her voice almost a squeak as she gasped, "Dear Kami, I've...I've never seen so many bodies in one place before...Are...did anyone else besides me die?"

InuYasha winced at the reference to Kagome's death, but managed to say, "Let's just wait until we get to the others, all right?"

Kagome thought this over, then nodded in agreement. "Okay, if you're more comfortable with that." Content for the moment, she snuggled against his back, burying her face in his silver mane and sighing.

The first person they happened across was the rather red-faced artist, who was puffing under the weight of the head of a sliced and diced oni, his legs skittering underneath him as he headed over to a large pile of assorted youkai body parts. "I am an artist," he grumbled, "not a sumo wrestler. I cannot lift heavy artifacts with only one hand. I only-" At that moment, Gaka caught sight of InuYasha and stopped in his ramblings. The oni's head thudded to the ground and rolled away as Gaka dropped it. The artist noted how the hanyou's eyes had regained their shining golden quality and how the stripes on his cheeks had completely vanished. A small smile crossed his face as Gaka looked over InuYasha's shoulder to see Kagome perched on his back, very much alive and well, albeit bloody and rather ragged looking. "I see you have returned, InuYasha-san," Gaka stated solemnly. He was having a hard time keeping the grin off of his face as he added, "And may I be the first to welcome you back to this life, Kagome-sama."

Kagome peeked out over InuYasha's shoulder, her face confused. "How did you know I came back?"

Gaka's face fell. "I...It will be easier to explain when we go over to the...never mind. Come on, let us go see the others."

The artist turned tail and started walking towards the center of the battlefield. InuYasha gave a "Feh!" and started following after him.

"I wonder what happened," Kagome said slowly. "Gaka-san seems a little on edge."

InuYasha shrugged, careful not to dislodge Kagome with the action. "Dunno. Maybe they had a fight over how to pile the corpses, or somethin'."

"Hmm." Kagome trailed off into thoughtful silence as the hanyou continued to follow Gaka, past all the mounds of bodies and the scars of battle.

* * *

Miroku and Sango were busy hefting a large snake-looking youkai between them and trying to get it on the top of a rather precarious pile of other snake-looking youkai without sending the whole thing crashing to the ground. It was difficult and tiring, seeing as Sango could only use one of her arms and Miroku couldn't put too much weight on his leg.

"What do you think happened to Kikyou?" Sango asked as she tried to gauge how much force she would need to throw the youkai effectively. "Do you think she did something to the Shikon-no-Tama?"

"I don't know. All I can say for sure is that Kikyou-sama did something with the Shikon-no-Tama that required a lot of power, and that it took her life to do so," Miroku replied, trying to figure out how to avoid the inevitable deluge of youkai corpses. "I hope that it had something to do with Kagome-sama, but I can't say for sure. Kagome-sama may have disliked Kikyou-sama, but I'm sure that Kikyou-sama loathed Kagome-sama." Miroku seized Shakujou from its resting place on the ground and used it to steady himself, grimacing as the wound in his thigh twinged slightly.

"Why would you say that? Kagome-chan always considered Kikyou the lucky one," Sango muttered. "After all, that baka inu always chased after Kikyou, but I never remember him chasing after Kagome-chan."

Miroku chuckled without any real humor. "I'm sure we could argue about that for hours, but there's no time for that. Now, I know for sure that that is one of the reasons that InuYasha is so..." Miroku paused, his amethyst eyes sad. "Well, I can't really say how to describe that look in his eyes. What I do know is that it was like Gaka-san told him: _'You are going to regret every word you ever said to her and every action you ever made to her.' _And I'm sure that's exactly what he's doing."

Sango tried to hide a sniffle as she finally managed to hoist the youkai on top of the pile. "I just wish it hadn't taken Kagome-chan's death to make InuYasha realize that he loved her."

Miroku shook his head. "I don't think it was her death that made him realize. I think it was what made him _act_. He was like a timid puppy who had been beaten once too often; he was so afraid of being hit again he didn't want to risk approaching Kagome-sama."

Sango was about to reply when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Turning about, she saw Gaka heading towards him, his face strangely calm and happy. "What is it, Gaka-san?" she asked, tilting her head as she fixed him with a bemused stare. "Did you find something interesting?"

"Did InuYasha come back?" Miroku asked, wondering if there would be yet another casualty they would have to add to their ever-growing list.

Gaka stopped walking towards them. A smile crossed his face as he turned his head up towards the star-spanned heavens above, his eyes a perfect mirror reflection of the night sky. "Yes and yes," he replied, his smile clear in his voice.

Now Miroku and Sango were even more confused. "Why are you so happy?" Sango asked. She couldn't understand why finding InuYasha now, after Kagome's death, could ever be a happy occasion.

Gaka simply gestured to the right of him. Miroku and Sango looked in the direction the artist pointed them.

Sango covered her mouth, a strangled scream barely contained by the appendages. Miroku just goggled, his amethyst eyes wide open as his mind refused to contemplate the scene before him.

InuYasha was striding towards them, his eyes just as bright as they had ever been, the stripes absent from his face for the first time since Kagome had been stabbed. And, sitting astride his back in her favorite way to travel, a soft smile on her blood-spattered face, was Kagome, her chest rising visibly with each breath she took as her sparkling brown eyes fixed upon her friends.

"Hi guys," Kagome whispered into the growing silence.

Miroku and Sango stared.

"I don't believe it," Sango finally gasped. "I...How...how could this happen?"

After getting over the initial shock of seeing Kagome alive, something clicked in Miroku's brain. "Kikyou-sama," he stated quietly.

"Beg pardon?" Kagome asked, a little too sweetly.

"Kikyou-sama. That's what she did with the jewel. She wished for your revival." Miroku's soft statement drifted away on the wind as everyone except Gaka stared at him with expressions ranging from dazed to disbelief on their faces. Miroku paid them no attention and instead said to the artist, "It's true, isn't it, Gaka-san? You knew that's what she did when I went to attend to her."

Gaka inclined his head. "It...crossed my mind as a possibility. I did not know if it was a certainty, however; after all, their past was clouded with dislike for each other."

"Will somebody please explain what's going on?" Kagome asked, looking from Gaka to Miroku and back again, an expression similar to the one she wore when she was doing her math homework upon her face. InuYasha nodded his agreement, also looking rather confused.

Gaka decided that he would explain, seeing as he knew a little more about the situation than the rest of them. "Kikyou-sama had picked up the jewel from where it had fallen, and I gave her my shard to complete the ensemble. She told InuYasha goodbye, and then...then...used the jewel to amplify the part of the soul she carried within her to call back Kagome's soul from beyond the grave and send it back to where it belonged."

Kagome mulled this over, a dark thought crossing her mind as she did so. "Did...did Kikyou survive?" Kagome asked, trying to slink off InuYasha's back to avoid what was sure to come afterward when Gaka gave the inevitable answer. InuYasha's hands tightened about Kagome's calves in a warning sort of way, so she stilled her movement.

Gaka gave InuYasha a pitying look, his black eyes somber. "...No. Kikyou-sama sacrificed her life when she made the wish, very much like you yourself did when you saved her from Naraku. An eye for an eye. Life for life."

Kagome felt InuYasha flinch beneath her hands, and tried again to get off his back. Sadness was welling up in her heart at the news of Kikyou's death, mixing with the quiet heartache that she had suffered for the past year at the simple fact that Kikyou had been InuYasha's first love, and there was nothing that she could do to replace her.

InuYasha, however, tightened his hands again, nearly digging his claws into Kagome's flesh with the force behind his grasping fingers. "Why the _hell _do you keep trying to get off my back?" he snapped, turning back to Kagome to fix her with an angry stare.

"I...I know you loved Kikyou," Kagome mumbled, unable to meet his golden gaze. "I just wanted to...to give you some space so you could...y'know, mourn her in peace."

InuYasha snorted, then, with blinding speed, shifted Kagome about so that she was in his arms, her side pressed to his chest. Kagome gave an "Eeep!" and clung to InuYasha, dizzied by his speedy movements. "What makes you think that I would miss Kikyou more than I missed you?" he asked, one ear flicking slightly as he cocked his head, his eyes filled with a sad curiosity.

* * *

Gaka, who knew that the moment between the hanyou and miko was getting rather intimate, gestured to Sango that this would be a good time to leave them alone. Sango nodded, then used her good hand to seize Miroku by the ear and dragged him away.

"But, my dear Sango," the houshi protested, "Surely someone should make sure that the two of them stay safe."

"Yeah, someone who isn't _you,_" Sango snapped back.

* * *

Kagome, meanwhile, had blushed and turned away from InuYasha. "Well, I heard-"

"Yeah, I _know _what you've heard, and I know what you've seen!" InuYasha snapped, seizing Kagome's chin and turning her face back to his. "But this is about _you _and _me. _It has nothing to do with Kikyou, all right?"

"But it has _everything _to do with Kikyou," Kagome shot back. "She's been the main reason behind a lot of my decisions from the start!"

InuYasha, who had been about to snipe her back with a smarmy remark, was stopped dead in his proverbial tracks. "_What?_" he asked, his tone disbelieving.

Kagome raised her chin, her face defiant. "Even if I did some things because of her, that doesn't change who I am!"

InuYasha ignored her statement and chased down the one thing that had bothered him. "What _sort _of decisions?"

Kagome went red again. "Like...like the decision to become a miko, sort of."

InuYasha raised a black eyebrow as he stared down at her. "Sort of? What d'you mean, 'sort of?'"

Kagome went even redder as she mumbled, "Part of it was because you kept comparing my skills to Kikyou's," she admitted.

InuYasha winced as though Kagome had slapped him. "And the other part?" he asked.

"I...I was just tired of you calling me weak," she replied, going so red now that soon she would be able to pass off as part of InuYasha's haori.

InuYasha smirked at her as he rubbed her cheek gently with his thumb. "Well, believe me when I say that you are definitely _not _weak...anymore."

Kagome ignored the latter part of the sentence as she smiled. "Thank you, InuYasha."

Now it was InuYasha's turn to blush. "Whatever."

Kagome stretched up and gave her hanyou a small kiss on his cheek, making him blush even deeper as he turned his face away, mumbling something she couldn't understand under his breath. "You're funny when you're embarrassed, InuYasha," she giggled.

"Feh," he muttered, although he did look rather pleased.

* * *

A few days later, after everyone had had the chance to recuperate for a while and recover from the aftermath of the battle, the village held a wake for its once-again deceased miko. Kikyou's body was cremated, and her ashes returned to the grave that she'd never wanted to leave in the first place.

Also, Miroku held a small service for Kohaku, who had been killed for a second time by Naraku. Although his body hadn't been found, Miroku said that the service would help his soul find peace. Sango had cried softly into Kirara's fur as Kagome offered her taijiya friend comfort while tears streamed down her own face. InuYasha ended up having to comfort two sobbing women until the service was completed and he could hand Sango over to a more-than-willing-to-comfort Miroku.

Gaka, after a great deal of consideration, had painted two pictures: one of Kikyou, and one of Kohaku. (Kohaku's had been done with assistance from Kagome, Miroku and InuYasha.) "Pictures," he said, "cannot replace the lives that have been lost. However, they can remind us of those we love. They help us to keep them in our hearts forevermore." Kikyou's had been hung in the temple behind her grave. Kohaku's was given to Sango, who had almost burst into a fresh wave of tears at the first sight of the painting.

After that, InuYasha decided that it would be best for Miroku and Sango to be left alone, and, leaving Gaka, Shippou and Kirara to look after things, took Kagome outside for some fresh air and a lifting of atmosphere. The day outside was beautiful. The sky was a perfect azure blue with barely a wisp of cloud to mar its magnificent majesty. The sun shone down on the waving green grass below as the trees murmured in a slight breeze. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago, Naraku's influence had caused the sky to go black and the land around him to become a desolate wasteland.

InuYasha finally stopped at Goshinboku, which was the one place close to the village that wasn't filled with mourners. He set Kagome, who was still sniffling, down on the ground, then rolled back onto his haunches and placed his fists on the ground, staring at Kagome like he could will her to stop crying.

"It...it's so sad, isn't it?" Kagome sniffed. "I mean...Sango-chan tried _so _hard to get her brother back, and he was ripped away from her before he could regain his memories."

"Yeah," InuYasha agreed. Kagome sniffed again, then scooted over and leaned against InuYasha, who put his cheek against her head and moved his left arm so it was behind her back.

"InuYasha?"

"What is it now?"

Kagome peeked at him from underneath her clumped eyelashes. "What...what were you feeling during...during Kikyou's wake?"

InuYasha shrugged again. "I dunno. Sad, maybe. But sorta...glad, too. I got to say goodbye to her this time, which I didn't get to do fifty-one years ago."

Kagome nodded uncertainly. "Do...do you miss her?"

InuYasha looked at her, annoyed. "You keep askin' me, and I keep tellin' ya, _no. _At least, not as much as I missed _you _when you...y'know..."

"Kicked the bucket?" Kagome offered. InuYasha winced again.

"That ain't funny, wench," he growled. He grabbed her chin and brought her face to within an inch of his own, his eyes dead serious. "I would much rather go to the wake of someone who died fifty-one years ago than _your _wake. Kagome..." InuYasha took a deep breath and said, "I don't want to live in a world where you're not there."

Kagome blinked, rather shocked at the hanyou's words. InuYasha scowled again. "Why's that such a shock? I've already told you that I love you."

Kagome only looked more shocked. "I know...but...you're being so...so..._open _about it."

The hanyou blushed slightly, his scowl becoming a little less pronounced. "Feh! It ain't so hard any more, y'know." He looked away, slightly embarrassed.

Kagome got over her shock and smiled at her hanyou's obvious blush. Stretching up, she aimed a kiss for his cheek as a sort of thank-you, but, seeing what she was about to do, InuYasha quickly turned his head so that the kiss meant for his cheek landed on his lips. His miko gasped and stared at him, causing him to raise an eyebrow as he wrapped his haori-clad sleeves about her small frame and deepened the kiss. Only a few seconds passed before she sighed and melted into his chest, her hands clenching in the red fabric that covered his chest.

Kami, he'd never get over the miracle of her being alive. That was one thing he would never be able to pay back to Kikyou: his past lover had sacrificed herself for his...well, _present _lover now.

_'Only because Kagome sacrificed herself first...' _a snide voice in the back of his mind pointed out.

_'Shut up and let me kiss her,' _he snapped back.

It ended too soon for InuYasha's liking; although Kagome remained in his arms, he wanted to kiss her until she didn't have a shred of sense left in her body. (And he would rather let Shippou tug his ears and send all of his kitsune-youjitsu tricks at him before he would admit _that _to Kagome.)

Kagome hummed happily, unaware of the hanyou's agitation as she stared at the blue sky, happier than she could ever remember being. She was alive, InuYasha was with her, and most everyone had made it out alive. Her happiness deflated somewhat when she thought about Kohaku, Kikyou, and Kouga, who had lost their lives in the fight against Naraku. It was sad to think that she'd never see Kouga again (even if he'd thought that she could ever be his woman) and as for Kohaku, she could feel Sango's pain as if it were her own. After all, she couldn't _imagine _losing Souta like that...

Kikyou...well, Kikyou had managed to turn Kagome's world upside-down when she gave her life to save the modern-day miko. Kagome had always thought that Kikyou loathed her because she'd been unable to see even half of the InuYasha that Kagome knew. However, if Kikyou had truly hated her, the undead miko wouldn't have sacrificed herself for someone that had everything she didn't.

"Hey, wench, what the hell are you thinking about?" InuYasha grumbled, tapping his knuckles against Kagome's forehead to bring her back to her senses.

"Huh?" Kagome blinked, brought out of her reverie by an irritated hanyou. "Sorry. Didn't mean to nod off or anything."

InuYasha scowled again as he growled to himself, "Tryin' to ask her something _important, _an' she's all _zoned out _on me!" This was more to lure Kagome in than anything else. She was just like a cat in that regard: dangle a string in front of her, and she couldn't help but to chase it.

"What? What's important?" As if on cue, Kagome started firing off her rapid questions, her brown eyes burning with curiosity. "C'mon, tell me, InuYasha!" she moaned when he pretended to have more interest in one of the Goshinboku's roots.

"I was just wonderin'..." InuYasha shot Kagome a sideways look, and saw that she was paying rapt attention. "Well, Naraku's been defeated..."

"Yes..." Kagome answered, her eyes still curious. Where was the hanyou going with this?

"And the jewel's been destroyed," InuYasha continued.

"Yes..." Kagome now had some inkling of where InuYasha was going.

"So...I was...I was wondering...what are you going to do now, Kagome?" he asked, hoping against hope that he was _not _blushing.

Kagome smiled at him, then turned her face back to the sky above them. "Well, for a long time now, I've been wondering that myself," she started, her eyes turned to the blazing blue sky. InuYasha stiffened beside her. _'Don't let her say she's gonna go,' _he pleaded silently. _'Please don't let her say she's gonna go...'_

"And I started to realize that my home...is where you are," she admitted, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks at her admittance. The hanyou also blushed, but more with pleasure than with embarrassment.

"So...does that mean you'll stay with me? Forever, I mean?" he asked, taking Kagome's hands in both of his.

Kagome looked down at their entwined hands and smiled widely at him, her face much like the shining sun overhead. "That...that sounded oddly like a proposal, InuYasha," she pointed out, tears starting in her brown eyes.

InuYasha shrugged. "I...s'pose it sorta is...isn't it?" he asked gruffly.

Kagome nodded.

"Is that 'yes, it is like that,' or 'yes, I wil stay with you?'" he asked, slightly annoyed.

"Yes," Kagome choked, her tears streaming over her face as she flung herself at his chest and all but wailed, "Yes, I'll stay with you!"

InuYasha, who was properly flabbergasted, wrapped his arms around her as he said, "Shit, Kagome, why the fuck are you crying? I thought you'd be _happy_."

"I-I-I-I-I AM!" she sobbed.

_'Women,' _InuYasha thought with a small shake of his head.

* * *

At dawn the next day, Gaka rose early, fully dressed as he silently packed his bag with his few belongings. Yesterday, he had decided that he was going to leave the village and start his travels anew. Gaka loved the first friends that he'd had in over a decade, but it looked like they were going to settle down, and Gaka knew that the art of the wandering artist within him wasn't ready to settle yet. But as he was winding his way through the miscellaneous huts and buildings that made up the village, a call behind him brought him to a halt. Turning back, he saw the entire entourage of InuYasha's group following him, their faces alight with expressions ranging from anger to concern.

"Gaka-san, where are you going?" Miroku asked as they stopped by the village edge.

Gaka smiled sadly at them, his black eyes flicking from face to face, drinking in the people he had come to cherish so much. "Alas, this is the end of the road," he sighed, "And as such, it is time for this useless artist to take leave of your company. I thank you for helping me so many times, and for looking after my Amaterasu, but now it is time for me to go."

Everyone blinked with shock, and Gaka could see tears glinting in the eyes of the women, as well as Shippou's eyes. "But..." Kagome said, her voice small and sad. "Can't you stay for a little longer? I mean, we've all come to value you as a great friend, Gaka-san, and...well, we'll miss you."

Gaka beamed at her, his black eyes alight with happiness at her words. "Thank you. This is the first time in many a year that someone has told me that they cherished my company. Even so, I cannot stay. The open road calls to my heart, and I must heed my intuition to wherever it tells me to go."

Sango came forward, her voice a little tremulous as she said, "How about you stay put for a few more days, Gaka-san? Then...then you'll be able to stay for...well..." She trailed off, her cheeks pinking slightly.

"Stay for what?" Gaka asked, curious.

Shippou picked this moment to pipe up. "We're having a double wedding!"

Gaka grinned. "Oh? And who are you marrying, Shippou?"

Shippou stuck out his tongue and said, "I'm not marrying anybody! But Miroku and Sango are getting married, and InuYasha and Kagome, too!"

Gaka turned his sparkling white grin onto the two blushing couples. "Congratulations to all of you. I am glad that you were able to confess your feelings to each other, and have decided to stay with the person you love for all eternity."

The girls giggled and blushed, while the men just looked away, trying to hide their pleasure from the too-sensitive artist. "I still cannot stay," Gaka said.

The moment was shot down with the comedic effect of a record screeching to a halt. "Why?" InuYasha demanded, his eyes blazing with wrath. "It's the least you can do, you bastard!"

Kagome elbowed her hanyou in his stomach, a frown on her face as she chided him for his language. InuYasha just gave a "Feh!"

Gaka turned his face back to the waiting road and said, "I wish I could stay with you for a while longer. But it is my destiny to leave today, and destiny cannot be ignored. Also, I am not as close a friend as I would like to be. You all have had an entire year to get to know each other, and I have only known you for a few short weeks. So I will leave."

Shippou leaped off of Miroku's shoulder and landed on Gaka's head, burying himself in the artist's spiky black locks as he cried, "Don't forget us!"

Slowly, Gaka reached up and detached the kitsune from his hair, handing him over to Kagome, who comforted the wailing kitsune. "Rest assured," Gaka said, turning away from the group as he began to walk, "I could never forget ones such as you."

"Gaka-san?" Kagome called after him.

"Yes?"

"What about your art?" she asked. "You've left your Amaterasu and a lot of your paintings back in Kaede's hut!"

Gaka turned back and smiled at the group at large. "Oh, yes, I forgot. Those paintings are my present to you, seeing as most of them depict scenes from your lives. Keep them, sell them, do with them as you please." Gaka sighed and swallowed, as if he had a very large lump in his throat. Then, he solemnly stated, "Amaterasu is too dangerous for me to keep. She is yours now. If you hang her in a shrine, I am sure she will keep watch over your village as long as my paints allow her to shine. I will miss her," at this a tear rolled down Gaka's face, "But the decision is a good one."

Kagome nodded, then shouted, "We'll take good care of her, Gaka-san!"

Gaka nodded, then turned away. Moving slowly as a fresh tear rolled down his cheek, Gaka walked into the east and the lands waiting in front of him. The group at large watched him go until he was only a tiny dot in the distance.

"I really liked Gaka-san," Kagome sighed.

"I'll miss him," Shippou sniffled.

"He was a unique individual," Miroku said softly.

"I hope he comes back soon," Sango murmured.

"Feh!" InuYasha snapped.

* * *

The double wedding took place a few days later, on the day of the summer solstice. Everyone in the village came to pay their respects to the wedded couples, feasted with them as they celebrated the unions of taijiya and houshi, and the rather unusual coupling of hanyou and miko.

Shippou ended up eating too much and had to be given a bad-smelling medicine, much to the amusement of everyone in the village. As InuYasha said, "Guess he finally ate too much food, the glutton." Of course, the fact that the hanyou was stuffing his face with food at that moment sent most of the people, including his newly wedded wife, into fits of hysteria.

Later that night, fireworks were sent up in the sky as the people continued to celebrate the wedding. The villagers dug out their instruments and played music for couples and family alike to dance to as the celebration went on and on. InuYasha and Kagome watched it all from the top of one of their favorite hills, their hands entwined between them as they watched someone who looked suspiciously like Miroku get a beating from someone who was probably Sango.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Kagome asked softly as she watched a new round of fireworks burst in the sky.

"What's that?" InuYasha asked, his ears twitching as he heard the male villagers below shout "Banzai!" as they passed around another jug of saké.

"You know," Kagome giggled as she twitched the hand that was enfolded with InuYasha's, light glinting off the rosary still wrapped about their hands. "That we're _married, _I mean."

InuYasha shrugged as a blush dusted his cheeks. "I dunno," he replied. "It...well, it doesn't actually feel that different, to tell you the truth." When Kagome raised her eyebrow at him, InuYasha's blush grew deeper as he stuttered, "Well...er, um, well, I mean, we're still, y'know, I mean..."

Kagome giggled again as she leaned against her hanyou and placed her lips against his, effectively shutting him up for a good few minutes.

Far below them, another round of fireworks shot into the sky, bursting in a spectacular shower of red and silver sparks, lighting up the lands below them as they descended into darkness.

In Kagome's opinion, it was the best night of her life, bar none.


	14. Epilogue: Sayonara Gahaku

**Four years later...**

The sun peeped slowly over the horizon, dispelling the thin layer of gray clouds that were the only remnant of the previous night's rains. Down below, in the small village by the Bone-Eater's Well, the houses were coming alive with small children who couldn't wait for an opportunity to play in the freshly created mud. High above that same village, near the hill that housed the home of the village's protectors, a black beetle shambled through the dew-laden grass, intent on finding another smaller bug for breakfast. As it wove its way through the tall green blades, a noise behind it made it falter and stop. The beetle listened, its black armor clinking in agitation as it tried to determine whether or not it was being followed. When the noises ceased, the beetle began to amble on again.

Out of nowhere, a tiny clawed paw descended on the beetle, who had no place to run to. The paw eagerly scooped up the beetle and held it up for inspection. "I gotta _hooj _beekul!" Rioichi squealed, his overlarge puppy-dog ears wriggling happily as he held the beetle in his cupped hands.

"I wanna see! I wanna see!" Taishou, Rioichi's twin brother, toddled over to where Rioichi was standing, his small face alight with curiosity.

Rioichi held the beetle away from him, sticking his tongue out from between his small fangs. "Don't wanna share," he sniffed.

"Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!" Taishou pouted, a frown on his face as his bronze-ish eyes filled with tears. "Wanna see!"

The bushes behind the two shihankiyou rustled, cutting off the argument over the beetle as they turned their heads towards the sound, ears twiddling madly as thing (whatever it was) rapidly approached. Then a huge shadowy form emerged from the treeline. "Youkai! Youkai! Youkai! Youkai!" the pups squealed, and promptly began to run toward their home, both of them moving faster than ordinary toddlers as their long silvery tails followed after them, whipping about like flags in a breeze.

"For the Kami's sake," Gaka grumbled as he stepped out of the surrounding foliage, "I am no youkai." With a grunt of pain, the artist extracted his crippled leg from the clinging bush and made his painful and slow way through the grass. The leg was a token of a rather bad fall Gaka had taken about a year ago. The poor artist had been left for two days in the recesses of the canyon in which he had fallen before help had arrived. His broken leg hadn't healed properly, resulting in the twisted limb and painful limp that would accompany Gaka for the rest of whatever life remained him. The short pole that Gaka used as a walking stick helped with the pain somewhat, but the artist knew that his days of traveling were most likely over. Even so, he'd set out for the village by the Goshinboku, knowing that it was there that he wanted to live out his remaining days.

The sound of rapidly approaching feet made the artist look up, a curious expression on his face. The two shihankiyou were back, followed by two very familiar people. InuYasha had his Tetsusaiga drawn, his face set and ready for the fight that he thought was going to follow. Kagome was following him rather slowly, both hands braced on her back to support the infant she was carrying. The twin pups were bounding about and pointing in Gaka's general direction, squealing, "Youkai! Youkai!" all the while.

Kagome was the first one to recognize Gaka for who he was. "Stop, InuYasha!" she cried, flinging out a hand to catch InuYasha's shoulder. The hanyou stopped in his tracks, sending dirt and leaves flying everywhere as he glared daggers at his wife.

"Why the hell did you-" Then he, too, caught sight of the artist.

Both hanyou and miko goggled at Gaka for a while, their eyes like dinner plates. The two shihankiyou, who were obviously their children, ducked behind their father's legs, peering around his red hakama and studying Gaka intently.

Kagome's brow furrowed as she tried to fit the crippled man in with the image of the lively artist she had bid farewell to four years ago. As the thought went through her head, the artist strode nearer, close enough for her to see his coal-black eyes, which were far more intelligent than his young face suggested. "Gaka-san?" she asked, her voice disbelieving. "Is...is that you?"

Gaka pulled himself closer, a small smile crossing his face as he dragged his nearly useless leg behind him. "It has been a long time. I am surprised you even remember me."

Rioichi decided that he was going to investigate the appearance of the new arrival. The shihankiyou pup slowly came out from behind his father, ears and tail quivering as his nose twitched slightly. "Mither," he asked, revealing his gap-filled and slightly snaggle-fanged mouth. "Mither, who are you?"

Taishou, who wanted to look as brave as his brother, also came out from behind InuYasha, although he decided to stay close to his mother. "Are you a youkai?" he asked.

Gaka smiled down at the two of them. "I am only a simple artist, little ones." He turned his eyes up towards InuYasha and Kagome, his smile broadening. "I see your marriage has been successful, then," he commented. Kagome blushed happily as InuYasha snorted and looked away.

"Whaza 'sess-sessful marrige' mean, Mama?" Taishou asked, tugging on the folds of his mother's hakama as his tiny brow furrowed with curiosity. Kagome smiled at the small boy, then crouched so that she and her son were eye level, one arm keeping the baby on her back still as she whispered something into Taishou's ear. "Oh. Okay," Taishou said after a while, though his small face looked disappointed.

InuYasha, meanwhile, was still watching the artist shrewdly. "You gonna tell us why you disappeared on us for four years?" he demanded. "Why the fuck did you go if you were just gonna come back?"

Before Gaka could answer, Kagome's eyes blazed with fury as she intoned, "InuYasha, OSUWARI!"

The rosary about the hanyou's neck glowed a brilliant white before it slammed him face-first into the ground. "K'gome...why?" he groaned, his face muffled by the ground.

"Language, InuYasha," Kagome chided as the two boys darted behind her, peeking out at their father's prone form with curious eyes. "I've told you a thousand times that I don't want you teaching our children filthy swear words!"

InuYasha glared back at her as he slowly pushed himself up off of the ground. "An' I've told _you,_" he growled back, "that words never hurt nobody, an' anyone who's got a big enough stick up their ass to care what I say has got better things to do than correct me."

Both pups at Kagome's feet squeaked with fright and ducked behind her legs. They knew what was coming; their father had said a 'naughty word' in front of them not once, but _twice. _Once was bad enough, but _twice _made their mother so mad that cross bears looked tame by comparison.

"Um...excuse me?" Gaka asked as Kagome drew in a deep breath, preparing herself for the argument that was to come. The artist's words made both InuYasha and Kagome turn around, glaring daggers at him as they did so.

"What?" they asked, almost accusingly.

"I was going to answer your question, InuYasha-san," Gaka clarified. "Oh, and by the way, I do agree with your wife on this one. Language like _that _should not be taught to a child." Kagome beamed triumphantly at InuYasha, who promptly started grumbling, his hands folded away in his sleeves as he muttered darkly to himself. "As I was saying," the artist continued, "I went away in the first place because I was not ready to stay. I had more things to see, to paint, to experience first. I will say now that I regret none of it."

"What about that beat-up leg of yours?" InuYasha pointed out, a touch of smugness to his voice.

"Ah. Well, yes," Gaka admitted, "The leg is one thing I do regret. Because of my foolish mistake, I will never walk right again, so my wandering days are now over for good." _'Among other things,' _Gaka amended in his head.

Kagome gave a small smile to the artist as she carefully shifted the babe on her back around, obviously trying to comfort the infant as she slept. "Well...I suppose if you need a place to stay, you could stay with us for a few days."

InuYasha turned to glare at her, his mouth open wide as he started to object, but Gaka cut him off. "No, that is not necessary, Kagome-sama," he said. "And besides, you know I prefer sleeping outdoors to an enclosed space. Not only that, I think your husband would eat me alive if he thought I was trying to get into your clothes," he chuckled, flashing InuYasha an innocent look. InuYasha growled, but looked slightly relieved.

"Oh. Okay then," Kagome said. "But can you at least stay for breakfast? I'll bet you haven't eaten very well these past few years," she offered.

Gaka shrugged. "It has not been so bad." But he slowly strode forward, his stick digging deeply into the ground, his crippled leg dragging behind him. Kagome nodded and turned back, InuYasha trailing behind her as the pair of them headed back the way they had came. Rioichi and Taishou toddled on either side of Gaka, their faces alight with curiosity. Gaka looked down on either side of him, and asked, "I do not believe that I've gotten your names. To whom do I owe this escort?"

Rioichi pointed proudly to his chest. "My name is Ri-oi-chi," he pronounced, "and that's my dumdum bruvver Taishou."

Taishou flared up instantly, his ears pressing against his head as he snapped, "_You're _the dumdum!"

Rioichi stuck out his tongue as he started to chant, "Dumdum, dumdum, dumdum..."

Taishou leaped at him, tiny fangs bared as he squealed, "Stoppit!"

The following fight was mostly ear-tugging, tail-pulling and lots of name calling. Some of the names would probably make their mother very unhappy if she heard them, and Gaka suspected that they learned most, if not all of them, from their hanyou father. "Now, now," Gaka said hesitantly, holding his stick with his shoulder as he tried to break up the fight. "No need to fight, you two. It was only a misunderstanding..." Unfortunately for Gaka, neither twin listened to him as they continued to squabble.

Then two clawed hands seized them by the backs of their tiny kimonos and hoisted them into the air. Gaka blinked and saw that InuYasha was suddenly standing in front of him, a scowl on his face as he glared at the pups dangling from his hands. Both of the boys now had flattened ears and tails tucked between their legs. "That's enough," he growled. "You got that? No more fightin', or I'll _really _have to get mad."

"Yes, Papa," they chorused, bowing their heads. InuYasha gave one curt nod, then released the pups, who tumbled over to their stern-faced mother and ducked behind her legs. InuYasha soon followed after them.

As they made their way down to the village, Gaka thought about the paintings he had left in their care. Were they still here? Or had the couples sold them somewhere? Gaka supposed that if they needed the money, he really wouldn't mind where they had gone. After all, they were a gift, and gifts were to be used as needed. Also, he wondered about the houshi Miroku and the taijiya Sango, as well as Shippou and Kirara. Were they still here, or had they wandered off to seek their own lives elsewhere?

_'If I get the chance, I will ask-' _Gaka's thoughts were cut short as a wave of dizziness came over him. The world around him whirled and became an almost black blur. The artist sank to the ground, gritting his teeth as he willed himself to be strong. _'Kami...it has gotten stronger,' _he thought as sweat began trailing down his pale face.

"Gaka-san? What's wrong?"

The world slowly realigned itself, and Gaka's vision swam into focus, bringing the world back into view. Kagome was standing over him, one hand held out to try and touch Gaka while the other comforted the now whimpering babe on her back. InuYasha was there, too, his face barely masking concern with indifference. Both Taishou and Rioichi were on the hanyou's shoulders, their faces curious again.

"It...it is nothing." Gaka used the stick to push himself up to his feet, groaning slightly as his leg twinged painfully.

"It's obviously _not _nothing, or you wouldn't be in so much pain!" Kagome snapped back, her face still concerned. "I _am _a miko, you know, and I can tell when someone's in pain!"

"I..." Gaka looked from her to InuYasha, and made his decision. "I will tell you about it when we get to your place."

* * *

The hut where Kagome and InuYasha live with their family was a rather strange affair. To the eye of a villager, the hut was more like a small mansion than a hut, although not richly decorated. The reason for this was that it had been designed to resemble the houses from the Heisei jidai while using the materials of the Sengoku jidai. The house was InuYasha's idea, who, despite all his reasons for 'not wanting to live like an animal,' was obviously doing it to make his wife more comfortable in her new home. Plus, it offered plenty of space for their pups. Gaka thought it to be the coziest affair he'd seen in a long time, and a tear rolled down his cheek at the thought of the home he'd once had, and would never have again.

They were sitting in the main room, which was the largest part of the house. There was a fire crackling in the middle of the room, and herbs hanging from every beam of the ceiling. In the far left corner, there was a place to prepare food, while in the back a hallway connected the room to the rest of the house. Gaka cast his eye around the place approvingly as he slowly lowered himself onto the ground in front of the fire, wincing slightly as his bad leg protested the motion. "You have done well these past few years, I see," he observed.

Kagome shrugged slightly, careful not to wake the tiny girl now sleeping in her arms. "It's not so bad, really," she stated modestly. "We're pretty well off, all things considered."

InuYasha snorted. "_What _things?" he asked irritably.

"Well, like the fact that _neither _of us know how to farm, and we mostly rely on offerings and hunting to get us through the winter," Kagome pointed out.

InuYasha shrugged. "Like you said, we're well off. I don't see what the fuck's wrong with that." Kagome shot him an icy stare that clearly said _not amused. _The twin shihankiyou were sitting on either side of their mother, and at the moment, their eyes were focused on their father.

"Did Papa just say a naughty word?" Taishou asked, his face alight with badly masked excitement.

"He said 'fuck,'" Rioichi stated proudly.

Gaka watched the following scene with an almost amused glint in his eye. Truly, this family was different from the rest of them, and yet, it was a good thing. _'It is their differences that bring them together, after all,' _he thought, his hands twisting about the gnarled piece of wood that he used as a walking stick. _'I wish I could have a family like that...but alas, it will never be...'_

A small tugging told him that one of the twins was pulling on his sleeve. Gaka looked down to see Taishou's dibbun face staring up at him, one tiny paw jammed in his mouth as his bronze eyes studied the artist intently. "What're you t'inking about, mither?" he asked with all the innocence of a child.

Gaka gave him a sad smile. "Only the past, my boy. Only the past, and the future I will never have."

Taishou tilted his head at him, his tail flicking out behind him as his tiny face became confused. "Whaddya mean, mither?"

Gaka's eyes alighted on the fire as the artist's voice took on a faraway tone. "It means that I do not have long for this world."

Kagome and InuYasha, who were in the midst of berating their son while yelling at each other, stopped as abruptly as if their voices had been stolen from them. _"What?" _they bellowed as they swung around to face him. The infant pressed to Kagome's chest gave a small cry as she stirred restlessly. Kagome gently shushed her, but the miko's eyes were upon the artist.

"What did you just say, Gaka-san?" she asked.

Gaka turned his gaze to the sheepish Rioichi and the paw-sucking Taishou. "First, send these little ones outside. I do not want them to hear what has to come."

The twins pouted, their faces screwing up into identical faces of displeasure. Just when they were about to start crying, InuYasha said, "It'll give you a chance to brush up on your hunting skills."

Just as suddenly as they had started, the shihankiyou stopped pouting and chased each other out of the door, yelling in their excitement. "Don't go into the forest! Stay near the house!" Kagome shouted after them, her face alight with concern.

"I believe they will be fine," Gaka muttered. "There is nothing malevolent in the area." Kagome nodded, though her fears were still not assuaged.

"So, what the fuck do you mean, your time on this world is over, or whatever the hell it was you said?"

Gaka raised an eyebrow. "I would have thought that that explanation was rather self-explanatory."

"No, it practically means _nothing,_" InuYasha argued.

Gaka thought for a few seconds, then sighed heavily. "I suppose I owe you nothing more or less than the entire explanation." Gaka placed both of his hands on his stick now, his gaze fixated on the fire in front of him and the half-empty pot of stew resting upon it that was the remainder of their breakfast. "Like I told you, I broke my leg about a year ago in an accident. What I did not tell you was that I believe this broken leg is killing me." Gaka gave the shocked couple a sad half-smile. "Do not look so astonished; I saw this coming four years ago when the dark hanyou's influence touched the Earth in that final battle."

At the mention of the final battle with Naraku, InuYasha winced, his hand moving to cover Kagome's. The miko gave her husband's hand a reassuring squeeze as she smiled at him, comforting him without words. Gaka took in the scene without comment, then continued. "Yes, I knew that somewhere in the not-too distant future, my death waited for me. I did not fight against Naraku, so it was not there. But I could see it swooping closer every day. Thinking that it was because I was a 'walking disaster,' as I believe you labeled me, InuYasha-san, I decided to take part of your company to spare you any more bloodshed." The artist looked at the ceiling, his eyes thoughtful. "I have no idea how long I have left-a week, two months, or even a few short days. All I knew was that I would want to live out my final days in this village...the only village that has felt like home to me in almost ten years."

Kagome and InuYasha stared at him, their eyes disbelieving. "So...you're saying that you came here because you want to..." Kagome trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.

Gaka got the gist of it, however, and nodded solemnly. "I am sure that you can find a small place for one artist to stay for a short while," he stated slowly, his eyes drifting shut as he leaned back against the wall. "As you probably know, I do not ask for much."

Kagome and InuYasha looked at each other, a flash of nonverbal communication zipping between them as the duo silently argued about what to do.

"I...think Kaede would be glad to help you," Kagome said slowly. "If...if there's anything we can do..."

Gaka shook his head, his sad smile back in place. "I only need your friendship, my lady," he told her.

* * *

During the course of the following week, Gaka learned many things about the people he had traveled with for those few short weeks four years ago. For starters, Miroku and Sango had decided that they were going to try to repopulate the village of the youkai-taijiya. They still visited their friends in the village by the Bone-Eater's Well every week, Kirara making the journey take only a few minutes. The visits were starting to get fewer and farther in between since Miroku and Sango had their own children to look after; two girls and a boy, with more possibly on the way. Shippou had decided to try and find some of his own kind to train/play with. However, the kitsune often stayed with Kagome and InuYasha, and was a favorite playmate of Rioichi's and Taishou's. It was clear that Shippou would be happy no matter which path he chose.

Kagome told him that shortly before the shihankiyou twins' birth, Hakkaku and Ginta had stopped by the village to see how their 'sister' was doing. They were rather unsurprised that Kagome and InuYasha had married and mated (they'd always been a little more realistic than Kouga.) The two ōkami youkai had stated that as predicted, Ayame had been very distraught to learn of Kouga's death, but after a month or two of mourning, she'd taken the reins of the youkai-ōkami tribe and replaced Kouga as head of their people. "She's doing really well, all things considered," Ginka had said.

As for Sesshoumaru and Kagura; well, the rumors had come in about a month after the defeat of Naraku, whispering about how the youkai Lord of the West had mated with a strong she-youkai, and that the entire Western domain was celebrating their union. "I don't know how credible these rumors are," Kagome had told him, "but I wouldn't put it past them."

Gaka smiled to himself. _'I am glad that everyone is living happily now,' _he thought. _'They all deserve a happy ending after all the pain they endured.' _Not only was everyone happy, but they hadn't sold one of his paintings. Most of them were in storage. "To preserve them for the future," Kagome had told him.

As for his Amaterasu, she had been given a place of honor in the temple where Kikyou's remains rested. The villagers knew her aura to be healing, if not divine, and often prayed to her when times were rough. Gaka was pleased with this, since no-one was being charged to pray to his Amaterasu. He'd also been able to visit her as often as he desired, and basked in her renewed aura. _'Oh, my lady,' _he thought as he looked at the blazing sun overhead. _'My divine Amaterasu...how you blaze so brilliantly this day. Thank you, my lady. Thank you for giving us this happiness. Thank you for allowing me to see my friends one last time.'_

Gaka's black eyes left the sky to look at the people around him. Most of the villagers were in the clearing of the Goshinboku, celebrating the summer solstice and the four-year anniversary of InuYasha and Kagome's (and Miroku and Sango's) marriage; the marriage of their protectors against all evils. One of the honored couple was currently sitting in the midst of the crowd of villagers, beaming at everyone around them as they accepted their offerings of food and saké. The twins, Rioichi and Taishou, were playing with Miroku and Sango's son, Miyatsu, while the former youkai taijiya looked after her infant daughters and threatened her husband with death if he even so much as looked at the young village girls.

Gaka laughed softly to himself. Some things would never change.

The artist leaned against the trunk of the Goshinboku, his black eyes far away as his hands wrapped around his walking stick. His pains and fainting fits had become stronger this past week, despite the medicines that both Kagome and Kaede fixed for him. Gaka knew then that it was time for him to leave. _'Ah, well,' _he thought, _'at least I am surrounded by friends.'_

The artist felt a few small tugs on his kimono, and opened his eyes to see Rioichi, Taishou and little Miyatsu looking at him, their eyes curious. "Why're you sweeping, Gaka-san?" Miyatsu asked, his chestnut eyes glittering with curiosity as he tilted his head at the artist. "Are you sweepy? Mama awways makes me hot tea when I'm sweepy. Mabbe we c'n get some for you, too."

Taishou snorted. "No-one wants hot tea atta fekkival!"

Rioichi nodded, for once in agreement with his brother.

Gaka laughed again. "I do not need it, although it is very considerate of you to offer me tea. I only need...a favor." The shihankiyou pups and the little boy all nodded, eager to have a mission to perform. "Tell your parents that I...was glad to be a part of their group, if only for a short time," Gaka murmured. "And tell them...that my Amaterasu is forever theirs now. I hope that she will live on beyond her creator, at the very least." Gaka slowly blinked, then fixed his gaze on the children in front of him. "Can you tell them this?" They all nodded again and scurried off.

Gaka smiled again and leaned his head against the Goshinboku's trunk, his dimming black eyes fixed once more on the bright sky ahead. _'Thank you, Amaterasu,' _he thought, even as his eyes drifted shut for the last time. _'You let me leave this world in contentment...which was all I could ever ask for. __All is well...all is well_. _Everything is as it should be.' _Mind drifting away on a sea of contentment, the artist's eyes slowly closed as his breathing became shallower. He would take his friends' leave now, but hopefully they wouldn't notice until the morning after.

The sounds of celebration continued on into the night, lulling the artist Gaka into a deep and well-deserved sleep.

***~*The End*~***

* * *

gahaku/gaka: artist


	15. Acknowledgments

_Acknowledgments:_

_Thanks to the Colbert Report for somehow giving me this idea while I was watching it._

_Also, thanks to my little bro for agreeing to beta my fics when I was just spreading my wings._

_Thanks for Nciku for letting me find out how many words mean "artist."_

_Thanks to Rumiko Takahashi for writing such a great story._

_And, of course, thank you to the people who read and commented on this story.

* * *

_

_Chapter 14 (Epilogue) is dedicated to Brian Jacques, who died on Feb. 5, leaving behind him a wonderful legacy of books. Taishou, Rioichi and Miyatsu, as well as Gaka's farewell scene, were based on some of the characters and events that Mr. Jacques wrote. The word "Dibbuns" was also created by Mr. Jacques.  


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I will now be working exclusively on my new fic, _Tall Tails, _since I am still experiencing _major _writer's block on _Lover's Curse. _Well, see you later!_


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